Neutrality restored

THE streets of Geneva were thronged with jubilant Portuguese fans as our tram inched through horn-tooting traffic on its way to the main railway station on Wednesday night.

Portugal had just beaten the Czech Republic in the Stade de Geneve and their supporters were determined to let everyone know all about it. Not that there were many locals abroad to offer congratulations. But, then, they did have more pressing matters on their minds.

As we trundled past the city’s official Fan Zone, we caught a glimpse over the security fencing of the massive crowd watching the pictures being beamed live on a giant screen from Basle, where the host nation was fighting for its tournament life against Turkey. At that point, with just over half an hour gone, Hakan Yakin had already given the Swiss the lead, and all was well in our part of the world.

Part of the essential experience of covering a World Cup or European Championship is that, on any given day in the group stages, you can only get to one match out of two and, because you invariably find yourself cocooned inside a train and therefore bereft of television coverage when the other game is taking place, you have to rely on mobile phone texts messages for updates on the drama.

Thus it was, that our train journey back to our base in Zurich was well underway when someone’s phone beeped to say that Turkey had equalised in Basle, and we were somewhere outside Fribourg when it beeped again to convey the startling news that Arda Turin had scored to win it for the Turks and seal Switzerland’s European Championship fate.

When we think of passionate European football supporters, we immediately conjure up pleasing images of The Tartan Army, the Orange hordes of Holland, the Danish ‘Roligans’ or our own shy, retiring boys and girls in green. The Swiss, we like to think, would rank well down the list when it comes to such euphoric public displays of national pride, not to mention ferocious boozing.

But Euro 2008 really did capture the imagination here. You only had to witness the feverish build-up to their opening game against the Czechs to understand that the natives desperately wanted to party like the Germans in 2006. The image that lingers in the mind was when we arrived in Basle for that match and watched open-mouthed as a huge, noisy waterfall of red and white poured down the escalators and stairs in the main railway station before marching en masse to the St-Jakob-Park stadium.

The contrast on Wednesday night could not have been starker. Our train back into Zurich coincided with the sodden retreat from Basle and the arrival in the wee hours on the platforms of the Hauptbanhof of thousands of soaked and sorry Swiss supporters. Once again, in the space of few days, a river of red ran through a railway station but this time almost in silence, with none of the cow-bell clanging, klaxon-blowing and drum-beating of last weekend.

Instead, the beautiful noise was all coming from delirious Turkish fans who raced around the city in cars, horns blowing and flags flying. Not that this would have been music to the ears of the Swiss, at least some of whom would even have viewed it as outright provocation, although it was a relief to note that whatever residual tension may yet remain from the bruising ‘Battle Of Istanbul’ three years ago — and not withstanding also that immigration is a hugely contentious issue in this country — Wednesday’s result didn’t translate into any outright hostility on the streets.

Instead, the Swiss, with their traditional neutrality restored, just got on with licking their wounds. Yesterday, there were still a few flags to be seen on cars or hanging from apartment windows but, like the ubiquitous advertisements which flog a hundred and one products through association with the national team, they had that irritatingly dated feel of already fading Christmas decorations which are still on display in January.

The national mood here is one of regret rather than recrimination, a reflection of the fact that, while they would have dearly loved to go a long way in Euro 2008, their role as co-hosts was never confused with that of tournament favourites.

Fickle as we are, the visiting media is already moving on to its next conquest. With Switzerland’s game against Portugal on Sunday now a dead rubber, the race is on to switch match applications from Basle to Geneva where the Czech Republic meet Turkey in a clash which could go all the way to a penalty shoot-out.

So, time just to say a brisk hello and goodbye Switzerland. We’re still here but you’re all gone. That’s football, for you.