Saturday, December 01, 2007

Switzerland December 2007

















do you have any cocktails ?
only two : caipirinha.... stop right there.

yes St Gallen has seen the light - they even have a bar called (the) 'caipirinha bar'.

After South America Switzerland is particularly calm, safe & ordered.
Somewhat cold at this time of year but bearable.

St Gallen offers a pleasant central area , with picturesque buildings, starbucks (plural) & restaurants of many kinds.
On a Saturday morning there is a market amongst which the affluent citizens can mingle accompanied by the smell of gluhwein.
There were some nose studs in evidence & the odd Goth but otherwise there was no sign of revolution coming from this part of the World.


In the afternoon you could take a short tram ride to the old Espenmoos stadium to watch St Gallen play Young Boys.

St Gallen 2 Young Boys 7

If this was the last competitive game at the old stadium then it couldn't be more low key.
There was no sign of any (home) celebration as YB overran St G with Hakan Yakin scoring four against his old teams very poor defence.
Incidentally Marco Tardelli, producer of arguably the best ever goal celebration after scoring in the 1982 World Cup Final, also had a spell at St Gallen.

FC Zurich 0 Aarau 1

Zurich is maybe an hour away.

And the Letzigrund stadium is a short tram journey from the centre.
It is famous for hosting the Weltklasse meeting & it does look more like an athletics stadium.
Anyone watching games here at the summer European Championships might not have the best of views.

For FC Z fans this game was not great viewing from wherever you were sitting.
They found it hard to get anything going against a resolute Aarau even when the visitors had been reduced to ten men.
Before that Aarau had missed a penalty, scored soon after & so went on to be the first team to beat Zurich at home this season.






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