\n<\/p>\n
Manzambi was once a goalkeeper for his youth team – and his first footballing idol was Germany’s Manuel Neuer.<\/p>\n
Now he is a creative midfielder who enjoys getting forward.<\/p>\n
And his goalscoring exploits against Bosnia-Herzegovina suggests he could be far more than just a “super-sub” at this World Cup.<\/p>\n
He broke into the Freiburg first XI last season and helped the German club reach the Europa League final.<\/p>\n
Manzambi started against Aston Villa in the final and although he could not help his side win – they were beaten 3-0 – he has been linked with moves to Napoli, Chelsea and Manchester United.<\/p>\n
His performance on Thursday at the Los Angeles Stadium suggests there could be more competition for his services this summer. <\/p>\n
It could have been even better had he been allowed to take his side’s 97th-minute penalty, with captain Granit Xhaka stepping up to convert instead,<\/p>\n
If Manzambi had taken it and scored, he would have become the third-youngest player to hit a World Cup treble, after a 17-year-old Pele for Brazil against France in the semi-finals in 1958 and 19-year-old German Edmund Conen against Belgium in 1934.<\/p>\n
Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea were all linked with Manzambi in March and, if he continues making an impact like this, the interest will only increase.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Manzambi’s first goal to give Switzerland a 1-0 lead, former Crystal Palace forward Clinton Morrison told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It’s a brilliant finish.<\/p>\n
“Switzerland needed to make changes because they weren’t doing anything, they were dominating possession but weren’t a threat.<\/p>\n
“It’s a fantastic volley and great technique to give Switzerland the lead.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manzambi was once a goalkeeper for his youth team – and his first footballing idol was Germany’s Manuel Neuer. Now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}