Switzerland Beat Ten-Man Scotland Without Xhaka or Embolo

Switzerland beat ten-man Scotland 0-3 at Barclays Hampden on 29 September, Ricardo Rodríguez scoring in the 12th minute after Jack Hendry’s red card. Sébastien Pocognoli’s first home match as Scotland head coach was gone before the new patterns he wanted had time to show.

The visitors had already won 3-0 in North Macedonia on 26 September without captain Granit Xhaka. They did this Nations League Group B1 fixture the same way, still missing Xhaka and Breel Embolo, and left Glasgow with six points and no goals against.

An Eighth-Minute Foul Left Scotland With Ten Men

Pocognoli changed three names from the 0-0 draw in Slovenia. Kieron Bowie, Nathan Patterson and debutant Luis Binks came in for Stephen Welsh, Aaron Hickey and Robbie Ure. The first five minutes of a high press looked lively. Then Dan Ndoye, the Nottingham Forest winger, ran at Hendry from deep inside the Scottish half.

Hendry did not have the pace. He pulled Ndoye down in the eighth minute, and Serbian referee Nenad Minakovic first pointed to the spot and showed a yellow card. After a long VAR check the foul was placed outside the box. The yellow became a red for denying a clear chance. Scotland had ten men for almost 80 minutes, and they had not yet been required to defend a free-kick from 19 yards.

THE NIGHT’S KEY MINUTES

1. Eighth minute: Hendry pulls down Ndoye; Minakovic awards a penalty and a yellow card.
2. After VAR: the foul is placed outside the box, the kick is moved, and Hendry is sent off.
3. 12th minute: Rodríguez beats Angus Gunn at the top left corner from the free-kick.
4. 13th minute: Bowie is withdrawn so Welsh can restore a back three.
5. 55th minute: Nico Elvedi flicks in Ndoye’s low cross from six yards.
6. 82nd minute: Zeki Amdouni lashes in from 16 yards, the ball going through Gunn’s hands.

That sequence is the whole evening in miniature. The sending-off did not invent the gap in quality. It advertised it, and it did so before Pocognoli had used a substitute.

Rodríguez Scored Before the Defence Could Reset

Rodríguez, the former AC Milan full-back, curled the resulting free-kick beyond the wall and inside Gunn’s right-hand post. Pocognoli’s reply was to take off Bowie, one of two strikers, and send on Welsh. The three-man defence stayed. The crowd dropped its voice. Switzerland had 75 percent of the ball before half-time, and Johan Manzambi, Amdouni and Ndoye all came close to a second.

John McGinn wanted a penalty at a Scotland corner and did not get it. Andy Robertson and Billy Gilmour forced a spell of corners at the other end, which was as much as the hosts created with eleven men or ten. Binks was booked in the 44th minute for a foul on Remo Freuler. Pocognoli was booked too, for shouting at Minakovic after McGinn had been fouled. The yellow on the touchline was the sum of a first half that Scotland spent chasing.

The red card of Jack is all of our red card. We stay together. We put this moment in our DNA today and hopefully it can be helpful for the future.

Sébastien Pocognoli, Scotland head coach, after the match

He also said the loss of the ball so high up the pitch, the moment that sent Ndoye through, belonged to the team rather than to Hendry alone. Captain Andy Robertson later put the defender’s choice in plainer terms: every fibre of a centre-back tells him to stop the shot, and the red card killed them. Hindsight is cheap from the stand. The foot race from halfway was already lost.

Elvedi and Amdouni Finished the Job After the Break

Scotland only half-cleared a corner. Ndoye took the ball on the right and drove a low cross through the six-yard box. Elvedi, a centre-back, got across Oli McBurnie and finished. Two-nil matched the balance of the night. Pocognoli then made a triple change on 59 minutes, sending on Ben Gannon-Doak, Ryan Christie and Robbie Ure for Patterson, Gilmour and McBurnie. The swaps were like for like. McBurnie’s 18th cap ended with his wait for a Scotland goal still intact.

Gunn denied the Swiss again on 66 and 71 minutes. Welsh was booked on 72 minutes, and Amdouni’s free-kick flew over. On 82 minutes Amdouni did not miss. Ndoye laid the ball off, the shot was hit with real power, and it went through Gunn and into the roof of the net. People headed for the exits. Murat Yakin had already taken off Manzambi on 63 minutes. The last spell was attack against defence, and Scotland never laid a glove on Gregor Kobel.

FULL TIME: Scotland 0-3 Switzerland.

Defeat in Glasgow this evening.#SCOSUI pic.twitter.com/uxVfodT4dO

— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) September 29, 2026

Switzerland Won Without Xhaka and Embolo

The week before this window belonged to Swiss prosecutors and old paperwork. Xhaka, the record cap holder on 152 appearances, admitted obtaining a vaccination certificate in 2022 without taking the jab. Swiss FA president Peter Knäbel said the player and the association had agreed he would sit out this international camp so the squad could focus on the Nations League. Aurèle Amenda and Denis Zakaria were left out as well, both carrying physical problems. Isaac Schmidt, Vincent Sierro and Joël Monteiro were called in.

Embolo was then told not to join the group in Scotland after fresh reporting on a 2025 financial penalty tied to forged test documents from 2021. The association, not Yakin, made that call. Yakin still had to take his place on the Hampden touchline after hearing trouble, linked to the flight into Glasgow, kept him away from the eve-of-match news conference. None of it showed in the football.

WHO SWITZERLAND LEFT OUT OF THIS CAMP

• Granit Xhaka: Captain and record cap holder, withdrawn by joint agreement after his public statement on the vaccination certificate.
• Breel Embolo: Told by association leadership not to join the squad in Scotland.
• Aurèle Amenda: Held back because of a physical issue, with Schmidt among the replacements.
• Denis Zakaria: Also held back on fitness grounds, with Sierro and Monteiro added to the party.

The team that actually walked out at Hampden still had Manuel Akanji, Freuler, Rodríguez, Elvedi, Ndoye, Amdouni and the 20-year-old Manzambi. They had scored through Freuler and Amdouni (twice) in Skopje three days earlier. Amdouni now has three goals in this Nations League, level at the top of the list with Erling Haaland, Joel Pohjanpalo and Lamine Yamal. Switzerland have not played at home yet. Lucerne, against Slovenia on 3 October and North Macedonia on 6 October, is next.

Four Blank Nights Since the Haiti Winner

Pocognoli, 39, signed an initial two-year contract on 16 August. He is the second foreign manager of the men’s side, after Berti Vogts, and the youngest permanent appointment the job has had. In his first season as a senior head coach he won the Belgian title with Union Saint-Gilloise, their first in 90 years, and was named Belgian Coach of the Year before a spell at Monaco. Chief football officer Craig Mulholland sold an aggressive, front-foot style. The Hampden crowd came to see it. What it saw was a team that has now gone four successive games without a goal.

That run did not start on his watch. Scotland’s first World Cup in 28 years ended in Group C with a win over Haiti, then a 0-1 loss to Morocco in Boston and a 0-3 loss to Brazil in Miami. Steve Clarke resigned. The two Nations League games have added a 0-0 and a 0-3. One goal in five matches, and none of them under the new manager, is the number Pocognoli now owns in public.

SCOTLAND’S LAST FIVE MATCHES

• 14 June: Haiti 0-1 Scotland in Boston, the only goal in this run.
• 20 June: Scotland 0-1 Morocco in Boston, Clarke’s side already heading out.
• 25 June: Scotland 0-3 Brazil in Miami, the night Robertson later saw echoed in Hendry’s red.
• 26 September: Slovenia 0-0 Scotland in Ljubljana, Pocognoli’s first game.
• 29 September: Scotland 0-3 Switzerland at Hampden, still no shot that troubled Kobel.

Judgment of a coach two games in needs that list in the frame. Were Clarke still in the dugout for a ragged night like this, the noise would have been ferocious. The same flaws, a high line that can be run, sideways passing under pressure, a striker who cannot buy a finish, have simply changed offices. Ian Maxwell, the Scottish FA chief executive, said on appointment day that Pocognoli inherited a squad that had just reached a World Cup. The finishing of that squad is the part that has not travelled.

Manzambi Ran the Midfield McGinn Could Not Reach

Manzambi is McGinn’s clubmate at Aston Villa and is 20. He made his Switzerland debut in 2025, scored three times at the World Cup before a knee injury ended his tournament, and moved from Freiburg in July. Yakin used him as a restless eight, dropping into pockets and spinning away from Lewis Ferguson. His cross just after the break found no taker. His shot fizzed wide of Gunn’s right-hand post. The home support grew tired of him going down, and of a verbal spat with McBurnie. The football was still his.

Scotland have no equivalent coming through at that age and that price. McGinn, for years the side’s pulse, spent the night looking for fouls more than for space. That is not a character judgment. It is what the match asked of him, and what he could not change with ten men and no runner off the front. When Yakin took Manzambi off on 63 minutes it felt, from the home seats, like mercy. It was also a statement of depth. Rodríguez, the scorer, went off at the same time. The lead never looked in danger.

Pocognoli’s own tactical range is still an open question. The first change after the red kept the back three. The triple change at 0-2 kept the same shape with fresher legs. Robertson made way for Josh Doig on 74 minutes. Unused names on the bench included Hickey, Kelly, Bain, Ryan Graham, Montgomery, Miller and Josh McPake. A winger for a full-back had been the bold move in Ljubljana, when Gannon-Doak replaced Hickey. At 0-2 at Hampden there was no such turn. Switzerland, with a depleted squad, still had more ways to play the same game.

Group B1 Already Has a Clear Shape

Two matchdays have sorted the section more cleanly than a new Scotland manager would have wanted. Switzerland have six goals and none against. Slovenia took four points from a draw with Scotland and a 2-0 win over North Macedonia, Sandi Lovrić and Aljoša Matko scoring in Ljubljana on the same night as Hampden. Scotland have one point and an empty goals column. North Macedonia have nothing.

GROUP B1 AFTER TWO MATCHDAYS

Group winners go up to League A. Runners-up enter promotion play-offs. Bottom sides face relegation play-offs in March 2027. Switzerland look like the promotion side in this group, and they still have two home games this window. Scotland’s remaining autumn list is North Macedonia away, Slovenia at Hampden, North Macedonia at Hampden on 13 November, and Switzerland in St. Gallen on 16 November. A first goal would change the mood. It would not, on its own, change the table.

Skopje on 3 October Is the Next Exam

The red card will follow Hendry to Skopje, and it should not be allowed to do all the talking. Switzerland were cleaner in possession, quicker in the half-spaces, and better in both boxes long before Minakovic reached for a second card. Ten men made a hard night impossible. They did not create the hard night. Pocognoli said he felt a little sad about the welcome he had been given, because the evening never became the home debut anyone had described to him in the programme notes. He also said the DNA of this result might help later. That is a manager talking to a dressing room that has four days to prove it.

North Macedonia have no points and no goals either, having lost 0-3 to this same Swiss side and 0-2 to Slovenia. Saturday, 3 October, at the Toše Proeski Arena is the first of Pocognoli’s games that will be read as a scoreboard test rather than a first impression. Slovenia return to Hampden on 6 October. He is still waiting for a first win and a first goal. Switzerland, minus a captain and a striker, already have both of those in bulk, and they have not even gone home.