Switzerland coach uses hydration break to spark late goal barrage in 4-1 World Cup win over Bosnia

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Some teams at this year's World Cup have blamed FIFA's new hydration breaks for killing momentum.

Switzerland used the break to seize it.

Coach Murat Yakin said he timed a triple substitution of speedy players for the second-half pause Thursday, betting that plucky Bosnia-Herzegovina couldn't handle an abrupt change of pace in what had been a nervy, scoreless match.

Johan Manzambi and Rubén Vargas made their coach look awfully clever while they led a spectacular barrage of goals that put the Swiss in control of the game and atop their group.

Manzambi scored his first World Cup goal on an outstanding volley in the 74th minute, and Switzerland erupted late for a 4-1 victory over Bosnia.

Despite controlling possession deep into the second half, Switzerland couldn't break through against the Dragons until Yakin used the FIFA-mandated pause to turbo-charge its attack with the 20-year-old Manzambi and the dynamic Vargas. Both substitutes immediately altered the tempo, and both played roles in multiple goals while Bosnia went down to 10 men.

“It was very important that after the second hydration break, we would change a few things, because then the opponent can’t react immediately,” Yakin said through an interpreter. “Maybe that was the edge we had. We brought in very fast players, and our opponent couldn’t run (with them), and it opened up gaps on the edge. That was my strategy. I waited until the break.”

Vargas scored in the 84th minute shortly after Tarik Muharemovic was sent off for a dangerous tackle. Manzambi scored again in the 90th on a pass from Vargas, and captain Granit Xhaka converted from the penalty spot with the final kick of the game in stoppage time.

Switzerland opened the World Cup with a disappointing 1-1 draw with Qatar last week, stoking concern about the team's mental state. The Swiss then struggled to get loose from the Dragons, who were unbeaten in their last nine competitive matches.

Backed by tens of thousands of raucous fans in the Los Angeles area, Bosnia capably hung with Switzerland into the second half — until the hydration break led to a moment of brilliance from Manzambi, a 20-year-old Geneva native who plays for German club Freiburg.

“This is probably the best moment of my career so far,” Manzambi said. “We knew we didn’t start the match in the best way, but we had to be patient. We know we’re a good team, and we showed it.”

Three minutes after Manzambi replaced standout winger Dan Ndoye, he jumped and connected perfectly on Amar Memic’s attempted clearing header. The volley set off a wild celebration in the nervous Swiss sections of SoFi Stadium.

“He’s a boy who learned how to play football on the streets, but on defense he also has a lot of discipline,” Yakin said. “He still needs to learn how to be more structured, but we are making progress. We try to give him a lot of freedom to play, and he handles it very well.”

Substitute Ermin Mahmic scored in second-half injury time for Bosnia, which still has a legitimate chance of reaching the knockout stage of only its second World Cup. Mahmic’s vicious goal in traffic salvaged some good feeling before a decisive showdown with Qatar next week.

“Maybe our start wasn’t that good, but from (first) cooling break until the goal, we were the better team,” Bosnia coach Sergej Barbarez said. “We had two or three excellent chances which should have ended in a goal. ... This is the first match we've lost in a while, and it is hurtful. It's quite painful, but we know that if we win the next game, we have an excellent chance of going forward in the tournament.”

Four minutes after Muharemovic was sent off for taking down striker Breel Embolo one step outside the penalty area, Embolo got the ball from Manzambi and slipped a pass across the front to Vargas for a no-doubt goal.

Xhaka then found Vargas in deep for another pass to Manzambi, who finished with aplomb.

Captain Edin Dzeko started and played 63 minutes for Bosnia, becoming the fourth outfield player to start at a World Cup in his 40s — a group joined by Luka Modric and Cristiano Ronaldo on Wednesday. Barbarez said Dzeko didn't play in the World Cup opener last week because he wasn't fully fit.

AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/FIFA-World-Cup

Switzerland's Johan Manzambi celebrates after scoring the opening goal against Bosnia during the World Cup Group B soccer match in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (Peter Klaunzer/Keystone via AP)

Switzerland's Michel Aebischer, left, and Bosnia's Kerim Alajbegovic eye the ball during the World Cup Group B soccer match between Switzerland and Bosnia in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Bosnia goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj, right, clears the ball during the World Cup Group B soccer match between Switzerland and Bosnia in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Switzerland's Dan Ndoye (11) battles for the ball with Bosnia's Amar Dedic (7), right, during the World Cup Group B soccer match between Switzerland and Bosnia in Inglewood, Calif, near Los Angeles, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Switzerland's Dan Ndoye (11) attemps an overhead kick during the World Cup Group B soccer match between Switzerland and Bosnia in Inglewood, Calif, near Los Angeles, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Switzerland's Johan Manzambi, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal against Bosnia during the World Cup Group B soccer match in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly 25,000 children caught in conflict were victims of a record number of violations last year, including killings, rape and recruitment to fight, and for the first time, government forces — not armed groups — were the main perpetrators, a new United Nations report says.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ annual report, released this week, has a blacklist of violators against children: government forces from eight nations and 67 armed groups from 16 countries and territories.

The number of violations — which also include abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access to help them — rose for a fourth straight year to 38,558, according to the report that is based on verified U.N. data. It said 24,174 children, a third of them girls, were affected, with several thousand subjected to multiple violations.

“The scale and persistence of these violations demand more than acknowledgment — they demand resolve,” the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, Vanessa Frazier, said in an analysis of the report.

She urged the 193 U.N. member nations to confront the findings and “recognize that protecting children is not an aspiration but an obligation, and that the decisions taken today will shape the futures they may or may not live to claim.”

For the first time since the U.N. authorized monitoring of abuses against children in conflict 30 years ago, the report said that “government forces were responsible for a majority of grave violations.”

Topping the 2025 list are the Israeli military and its security forces, with 12,445 violations. That is followed by Congo, with 4,114 violations, and Myanmar, Somalia and armed groups in Nigeria, all with over 2,000 violations. Government forces from Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Russia's armed forces in Ukraine are also on the blacklist.

The blacklist also includes Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which carried out the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attacks in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sparked the war in Gaza. The U.N. says Israeli settlers were responsible for 326 grave violations last year, and Guterres warned that if these attacks continue, the settlers could be put on the blacklist.

The report says government forces were “the main perpetrators” of 6,266 killings of children — a 34% increase from last year — as well as 7,958 injuries.

The U.N. said it verified the killing of 2,668 Palestinian children by Israeli forces in Gaza and 55 Palestinian kids in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The U.N. received reports of the killing of an additional 4,588 children in Gaza and injuries to 346 Israeli children that it is in the process of verifying, the report said.

Guterres said he was “appalled by the magnitude of grave violations against children” in Palestinian territories and Israel, “gravely alarmed by the staggering increase in grave violations” perpetrated by Israeli forces, and “deeply alarmed at the staggering rise in attacks carried out by Israeli settlers” affecting children with no accountability.

The U.N. chief urged Israel to develop and sign a plan with the United Nations to end the killing and maiming of children and attacks on schools and hospitals with time-bound commitments.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon accused Guterres of blurring “the fundamental distinction between a democratic state fighting for its survival and murderous terrorist organizations” like Hamas and Islamic Jihad rather than standing with the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. He said this will be Guterres' legacy — “one of the greatest moral failures in the history of the United Nations.”

Frazier, the special representative for children in conflict, told reporters Thursday that there are a number of reasons government forces were responsible for more violations this year. That includes “the impunity that we are seeing towards international law” and changes in warfare from battlefields to densely populated places using new weapons like drones and explosives that cover a wide area, she said.

“Children were impacted while escaping fighting, seeking food, water or medical care, and navigating areas heavily contaminated by explosive remnants of war, often contributing to life-long disabilities,” she said in the analysis of the report.

The U.N. said it verified the recruitment and use of 6,607 children in conflict, with the highest numbers in Congo, Nigeria, Haiti, Somalia and Colombia. It said 5,129 youngsters were abducted, mainly in Nigeria, Congo, Somalia, Myanmar and Mozambique.

And it reported 1,783 child victims of rape and sexual violence, with the highest number in Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Haiti.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference at the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) in Port-au-Prince, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)