Former Switzerland all-time leading goalscorer Kubilay Turkyilmaz thinks Xhaka should never become a captain of the national team, but not for the reason you might think.

Xhaka is coming in for a lot of stick at the moment, after giving the ball away early on in the build up to a Cardiff goal on Sunday. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that he and Matteo Guendouzi don’t make an effective pairing, and either of them alongside Lucas Torreira would be a better option.

However, speaking ahead of the international break, Turkyilmaz makes a completely non-footballing argument for why Xhaka shouldn’t captain his national team.

“Yann Sommer (should be captain),” he insisted. It takes one who represents traditional Switzerland, as Stéphane says so beautifully. If you want to prevent the identity from dwindling with our national team, Xhaka can never become a captain.

“For example: I saw the Serbia game with my buddies. They said, ‘Okay, we won. Good.’ But that is not a victory for the right Switzerland. That’s a declaration of bankruptcy!”

The former Swiss striker argues that if management knew Xhaka, Shaqiri and Lichtsteiner would’ve celebrated with the double-headed eagle, they shouldn’t have even started the match.

Admittedly, it was a risky move by the trio. Although it would’ve been excessive to see them receive bans for the gesture, I certainly wouldn’t have put it past FIFA to make examples out of them. In the end, it didn’t matter, as Switzerland went out soon after anyway.

Nonetheless, a show of pride in their ancestry shouldn’t stop Xhaka or Shaqiri from representing Switzerland just as proudly. The two things aren’t connected, and it’s wrong of Turkyilmaz to act like they are.