Switzerland Pulled Off a World Cup First Nobody Saw Coming vs. Bosnia

The 2026 World Cup group stage is barely into its second round of games, and we already have a statistical oddity that might never be repeated.

Switzerland needed a win Thursday against Bosnia-Herzegovina after opening Group B with a disappointing tie against Qatar. For 70 minutes at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, it looked like more of the same. Zero goals. Stale attack. The kind of game that makes neutral fans scroll their phones.

Then things got weird fast.

Switzerland won 4-1, and here’s the part that had stats people double-checking their notes: every single goal in the match came after the 70th minute. According to OptaJoe, that’s never happened before in World Cup history. Not once. Five goals, all scored in a 27-minute window late in the second half.

The goals came in a blur

Johan Manzambi came off the bench and broke the deadlock in the 74th minute. Fellow sub Ruben Vargas made it 2-0 just 10 minutes later. Manzambi struck again in the 90th to put the game to bed, or so everyone thought.

Bosnia didn’t quit. Ermin Mahmic pulled one back in the 93rd minute to make it 3-1 and give his team a faint pulse. But Granit Xhaka slammed the door in the 97th minute with a fourth Swiss goal that sealed the final score.

Four of the five goals came from substitutes, which tells you something about how both managers approached the game. Switzerland’s depth won the day, plain and simple.

What this means for Group B

The win puts Switzerland atop the group with four points. Bosnia sits on one point and needs results to break their way just to have a shot at the knockout stage. Canada, the tournament’s host nation, was up 3-0 on Qatar late in the second half as of this writing. A win there would put Canada level with Switzerland on four points heading into the final group games.

For Switzerland, the message is clear: they can’t afford slow starts against teams they’re supposed to beat. The late explosion worked this time, but relying on 70th-minute heroics isn’t a sustainable formula. Then again, they just made history doing it. So maybe they keep riding the strategy and see where it takes them.