BSC Young Boys - FC Luzern (21-05-2015)

A belated departure at the rental company plus roadwork in and around Paris means that I am outside of Paris 1.5 hour later than planned. This means I have to drive virtually all the time to still make it to Bern for this odd Thursday evening game. I arrive ten min early at the stadium... where I get stuck in traffic.

After having finally parked at my hotel, next to the stadium, I make my way over to the Stade de Suisse, the national stadium, which opened in 2005. As in St. Gallen the new stadium is built on top of a shopping mall – somehow fitting for a cold capitalist country. On the agenda is a game in the top flight of Swiss football, the Raiffeisen Super League, between home team Berner Sport Club Young Boys 1898, or BSC Young Boys for short, and FC Luzern.

  

After having been sent to another ticket office, as all others close exactly at kick-off (?!), I pay a hefty CHF 35 (roughly $40), and can finally get into the stadium. While in line for my ticket I had already heard that I missed the first goal. I assumed it was for the home team.

As I take my seat, 15 minutes after kick-off, I see that the visitors of FC Luzern have scored the first goal in the 13th min. As they brought some 500 fans, who (only) had to drive some 1.5 hours, it sounded as if Bern had scored.

It is a cold May evening and the stadium is roughly one-third filled – the official attendance is 14,430. Most have some yellow-black gear; around me there are mostly older men. The young 'ultras' are in the stand opposite me and have nice banners.

 

In terms of both quality of both atmosphere and football the game is not much different from a second division game. Just the setting is different. Not that many chances, but both team try to attack without taking too much risk. Unsurprising half time score is 0-1.

  

The second half is not much different. In the 48^th minute a blocked Young Boys shot leads to a Luzern counter. The next attack leads to a good safe on the line by the Luzern goalie.

Overall the game is characterized by good but predictable passes in midfield and poor final passes. There are many small and bigger fouls that the referee lets go, which means it gets worse and he looses more and more control. In the 68^th minute a Luzern striker takes the ball from a Bern defender (who appeals in vain for a foul) and shoots from outside of the box just wide.

In the 75^th minute a long ball puts a Bern striker alone in front of the keeper, but he decides to head from 15 meter (very wide) rather than control and shoot. Two minutes later a Luzern player grabs a Bern player by the neck, but gets only a yellow card from the wheezily referee. In the 81th minute a Bern free kick was headed in from 7 meter, but the goalie stops the ball on the line.

In the 88^th minute a too short Bern back pass leads to the goalie fouls the Luzern striker, but the referee gives the striker a yellow card for diving. Absolutely terrible referee! In the 90^th minute a Bern surprise shot from 20 meter goes just over the goal. In the first minute of extra time the Luzern goalkeeper and a Bern striker clash in the 5 meter box, the rebound is saved by a defender with his hand, but the referee doesn't punish either foul. Final score: 0-1.

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Modern Swiss football is a bit like the Champions League without the good football. A completely sanitized football experience. A stadium built above a shopping mall, high prices for everything (football and food) to keep it middle class, and too big stadiums for the moderate number of fans. The only thing that gives it some authenticity, are the tifosi, who sing and drum and create at least some atmosphere.

FC St Gallen – BSC Young Boys (15-03-2014)

It takes us around 2.5 hours to drive the 250 km from Stuttgart to St. Gallen, in part because we are not stopped at the German-Swiss border – the last time T and I tried this, the Swiss border guard inspected our car for almost 30 minutes! We arrive well in time for the game, despite getting lost in St. Gallen.

To be honest, I had never heard of FC St. Gallen before planning this trip. They have never really been a major team in Swiss football, for a long time yo-yo-ing between the first and second divisions. This not withstanding, they were founded in 1879, which makes them the oldest existing team in Switzerland and, according to Wikipedia, continental Europe!

Today FC St. Gallen plays in the Swiss Super League, the country’s First Division. Its home is the AFG Arena, a beautiful modern stadium, completed in 2008. It has a capacity of 19,694 and currently doubles as home for FC Wil, a team from the Swiss Challenge League (Second Division), which is building a new stadium to meet the Swiss Football League’s standards.

The stadium is situated above a shopping mall. We park in the parking garage under the mall and walk through the largely closed but clean shopping mall to the stadium. Welcome to football in the 21^st century! At the surprisingly makeshift ticket office we buy tickets for the standing-only home section behind the goal. The tickets cost 25 CHF (€ 20.50) a piece, which isn’t too bad for a top division game in a comfortable stadium in a very expensive country.

We walk past the ‘ultras’ of the home team as we make our way up the stairs. The stadium is quite full and had a good, organized, atmosphere for a Swiss game. While I estimate that there are some 6,000 people in the stadium – almost exclusively white and (upper) middle class – they later announce that the official attendance is 13,157, which seems a wild exaggeration. A quite decent number of fans, some 300, have made the 200 km trip from Berne to support their Young Boys (YB), one of the most successful clubs in Swiss football.

The game is not overly exciting even though the quality is pretty decent. The plays are technically competent and the teams play tactically quite well. The pace isn’t too high though and creativity is rare. The first chance is only in the 20^th minute: a header for FC St. Gallen. Two minutes later a home player is lucky to get the ball and shoots at the YB goalie.

In the 24^th minute YB gets a corner. The goalie saves the shot but the rebound header finds the net: 0-1. Just two minutes later a FC St. Gallen player breaks through, gets around the goalie, and scores: 1-1. Looks like we are having a game now!

YB responds by creating two good chances, but both shots are saved by the FC St. Gallen goalie. Over all the football is pretty decent: YB is better, but FSG works harder. Half time score is 1-1.

The second half is much less impressive. The quality of the game drops dramatically. YB defends very deep, hardly tries to play, while FSG dominates but doesn’t create any real chances. This notwithstanding, the home fans continue their singing of largely unoriginal songs.

When a YB forward makes two nasty fouls within 5 minutes he gets two yellows (and therefore red) and has to leave. This gives the fans some hope, but the game doesn't really change much. FSG just doesn't have enough quality to score. Final score: 1-1.

In many ways this was a very modern football experience. A modern stadium integrated in a shopping mall with significant comfort and well-behaved affluent fans. At the same time, the atmosphere was surprisingly good for a small Swiss team.

FC Zürich – GC Zürich (26-09-2004)

Last Saturday I had to be in Zurich for work and to my great surprise and joy I found that the city derby between FC Zurich en Grasshopper-Club Zurich was played that Sunday afternoon. After a usy tram ride to the stadium, in part because of the car-free Sunday, I arrived shortly before kick-off. For CHF 35 (ca. 22.50 euro) I bought a ticket for the covered seating stand at the Tribune Ost (East Stand).

Stadion Letzigrund is the home of the Fussballclub Zürich and can host 19.400 people. It is more an athletics than a football stadium, having a horrible cinder track around the pitch. At the moment it is also simply an ugly building, but it is nominated to be completely renewed.

The stadium was quite well filled with officially some 10.800 people (considering he game was also live on Swiss tv). The visitors of “GC” (Grasshopper-Club) were with some 2.000, including a hardcore behind one of the goals. The atmosphere was electric from the start, despite the rather poor level of play. The Swiss league is probably best comparable to the Belgian, reasonably defensive, slow, and technically mediocre. I was particularly struck by the lack of tactical skills and the many different position takings of the players. Most players on the pitch were Swiss, but there were also some Africans, a Brazilian (Nunez), and a well-known Romanian (Filipescu).

I can be short of the game itself: the first half hour GC had a bit more of the game, but without creating many chances. Surprisingly, it would be FCZ that scored after some 30 minutes, after a mistake of the GC goalie. 1-0 was also the half time score. The second half started some 7 minutes later because of the dense clouds of smoke from the fireworks of mostly the away supporters. The GC fans would dominate most of the second half anyway, breaking through the fences twice (once with the help of a garbage container), demolishing the fence behind the goal, and fighting with the police outside of the stadium for much of the last 20 minutes of the game.

The home supporters remained untouched by the hooliganism of their city rivals, as their team scored the second and final goal of the game in the 80^th minute. This meant that, for the first time in 20 years (7334 days!!), FCZ won a city derby at home again. As you can imagine, this was celebrated frantically by the home fans!