On Saturday 25 June 2016, Switzerland met Poland in the knockout round of the Euro 2016 championships. Poland scored in the 39th minute, but it wasn’t until the 82nd minute that Xherdan Shaqiri, twenty metres from the goal, performed an amazing somersault that catapulted the ball to the back of the net. Unfortunately, after a goalless extra time, the penalty shootout was not kind to the Swiss, putting an end to the team’s Euro 2016 journey.
Xherdan Shaqiri, the hero of the match, played his first game for the Swiss national team at the age of 19. He was born in Kosovo on 10 October 1991, and moved to Switzerland with his parents when he was one year old. At the age of 10, he joined the FC Basel junior squad. Ten years later he signed his first professional contract with the club. After three Swiss championship titles and two Swiss Cups, on 1 July 2012 the midfielder left Basel for Bayern Munich. Despite playing infrequently, he won honours in the Champions League, Europe Super Cup, Club World Cup, two German national championships and two German Cups. In 2015 he joined Inter Milan, where he played one disappointing half-season, before transferring to English club Stoke City, where he is contracted to play until 2020.
In 2011, aged just 19, he became the youngest player to be named Switzerland’s footballer of the year. In 2014 Xherdan Shaqiri got himself noticed at the World Cup, where he scored three goals against Honduras and sent Switzerland through to the knockout round. Unfortunately, his magnificent goal against Poland this year wasn’t enough to keep his team in the tournament, but Xherdan can console himself with the fact that he scored probably the finest goal of Euro 2016.
The Swiss international has been a Hublot ambassador since June 2015. He posed for a series of portraits of football superstars as part of the “Hublot loves football” team, and went to Baselworld in 2015 and 2016. At this year’s Baselworld, Hublot unveiled the official UEFA Euro 2016 watch – the Big Bang Unico Retrograde Chronograph Euro – in the presence of their distinguished guest, who had already had the opportunity to see and wear it during his visit to the company’s Nyon manufacture. But Shaqiri’s favourite model is in fact the Spirit of Big Bang White Ceramic, a picture of which he posted on Twitter. This highly shock-resistant automatic skeleton chronograph has a tonneau-shaped microblasted white ceramic case and is water resistant to 100 metres. Fitted with a white rubber strap, it makes an ideal summer watch.
