Switzerland is once again capable of competing for world championship medals: 2021 Hockey World Championship prediction and betting

Switzerland is having the best time in their history. In 2018, they won silver at the World Championships, and the following year they were one second away from reaching the semi-finals, but still lost to Canada. Will Patrick Fischer’s men be able to fight for world championship medals again? We predict that they will have a good chance of achieving a good result.

Current form

For many years, the Swiss team had been a mid-table side in terms of world hockey. After 1953, when Switzerland won bronze at their home World Cup, they went 60 years without a medal at a major international tournament. The unlucky streak was interrupted only in 2013 when the Red-Whites managed to win silverware, but even then they failed to consolidate their place among the elite national teams.

Over the next five years, Switzerland made it to the quarter-finals again but failed to reach the medals until 2018, when they sensationally came second in Denmark, losing to Sweden in the final, with only a shoot-out. The next year Patrick Fischer’s side reached the quarterfinals where they sensationally beat the stellar Canadian national team. However, they conceded the game when the scoreboard showed 59:59 which allowed the Maple Leafs to level the score and later win in overtime.

The Swiss national team once again approaches the 2021 World Cup as the favourites. Their head coach remains the same, as well as many of the guys from the squad that made it to the 2019 World Cup finals, and a serious squad from the NHL is also expected to arrive. They all had a good season this season, although their clubs missed out on the playoffs. Moreover, the Swiss had great friendlies on the eve of the tournament in Latvia, beating Russia 3-1 and 1-0 twice, as well as the Latvian hosts 3-0.

Switzerland’s Group A opponents

The Swiss team is in a very tight and evenly matched group. The team of Patrick Fischer is not the Russian national team for whom such an outcome would be disastrous, so they have an excellent chance of finishing in the top four. It will be difficult to compete over the distance with the national teams of Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden, although they will go to the tournament in Riga without serious reinforcements from the NHL, so will probably lose points to give their opponents a chance.

But Great Britain, Slovakia, Denmark and Belarus look like far more modest teams than the Swiss. Great Britain will try to repeat last year’s exploits, playing their only game in the tournament against Belarus for the chance to stay in the elite division, while the Slovaks and Danes have been generally disappointing in recent years, and they’re not expected to have any NHL reinforcements at all.

Expert Betting Tips

Combining the current state of the Swiss team with its rivals in Group A, we see that Patrick Fischer’s side must reach the quarterfinals, and there is a good chance that they will do so not from fourth place, as Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden do not have the squads to go the distance of the competition with them perfectly, while the Swiss roster itself is very even, experienced and skilful.

There is a good chance that they can take on one of the following teams in the quarter-finals: Finland, Canada or the USA. These teams will probably finish in the top three, but the toughest of the three is in the hands of Finland, the reigning world champions, but they are still a long way from being beaten.

Patrick Fischer’s team nearly beat the stellar Maple Leafs in the last World Cup, narrowly missing out on a win with just seconds to go in the third quarter of the quarter-final, and now both North American teams are travelling with experimental line-ups, so beating them is possible and necessary. With that in mind, it’s worth looking at a bet on Switzerland reaching the World Cup semi-finals at odds of around 7.00.