While Swiss winger Shakili's brilliance is hardly comparable to Messi's and Cairo's, his opening goal against Serbia in the last match made it three consecutive World Cup finals weeks in which he has scored, enough to compete with those two soccer kings.
The 31-year-old Shakili's form has dipped in recent years and he is currently playing for the Chicago Fire in the USL, however he has always been a revelation when representing Switzerland in major tournaments. In the first round of the Group G match against Cameroon, he made a pinpoint pass for Bilbao to score the winning goal. In the last round of Group G, the "Swiss Messi" scored the first goal again, and became the key contributor to Switzerland's success in beating Serbia 3-2.
In fact, the Crusaders have scored in their last 27 international matches (including the World Cup and Europa League), and Shakiri has been involved in 13 of them (nine goals and four assists). In terms of World Cups alone, he scored three times in a row against Honduras in 2014, and once against Serbia in 2018 and twice in the current World Cup, making it three in a row, a feat that only Mes and Crowe have been able to achieve, which is nothing short of remarkable.
Shakili has amassed five World Cup goals, just one less than Switzerland's World Cup goal record holder Wang Xiaozhi. The late Swiss soccer great scored a total of six goals at the 1954 World Cup, meaning Shakili can equal the team record with one more goal against Portugal in the round of 16.
