Vladimir Petković

Vladimir Petković was born in Sarajevo in 1963, played briefly as a midfielder in the Yugoslav second division, and built his coaching career across Switzerland — at Lugano, Bellinzona, Sion, and Young Boys — before his breakthrough season at Lazio in 2012-13, where he beat Roma 1-0 in the Coppa Italia final. That single Roman derby trophy bought him enough credibility that the Swiss FA hired him in 2014, and the next seven years redefined what Switzerland could be at major tournaments.

His Switzerland teams reached the round of 16 at the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2016 before producing the country’s greatest-ever tournament result at Euro 2020: a penalty-shootout victory over France in the last 16 in Bucharest. They went out only when Spain edged them in another shootout at the quarter-finals. Three knockout rounds in three majors is not what Switzerland had ever done before, and it remains the platform on which Petković’s reputation rests. A short, unhappy spell at Ligue 1’s Bordeaux followed in 2022-23; the club was relegated and he left. When Algeria sacked Djamel Belmadi in January 2024 after their AFCON disaster, Petković was hired within five weeks.

His Algeria has been a careful rebuild. Petković favours a 4-3-3 with an inverted-winger right (Mahrez), an overlapping-fullback left (Aït-Nouri), and a controlling 6-8-8 midfield with Bennacer as the conductor. He has been willing to bring in dual-eligible players from European systems — Luca Zidane, Ramy Bensebaini, Houssem Aouar — and equally willing to give domestic-based youth like Ibrahim Maza their first senior caps. The October 2025 qualifying campaign closed with eight straight wins; the team’s loss to Guinea in his first competitive match feels distant.

The Algerian press has not always been kind. He was criticised for tactical conservatism in the 2025 friendly against Uruguay, and his Bordeaux baggage was used against him during the first call-ups. But the qualifying results spoke for themselves, and the man who took the world’s smallest UEFA nation past France at a major tournament is now being asked to do something similar with Algeria — beat one of Argentina or Austria in Group J. His record at majors says it would be foolish to count him out.