The Final Whistle

As the European soccer championships comes stumbling to their inevitable conclusion (I favour Germany over Spain but what do I know), the various media pundits dispatched to the Alps to cover this football fest start to churn out their wrap up stories with a similar inevitability.

These articles attempt, in broadly sweeping arcs and with full use of stereotyping, to extract some grain of truth from a series of unrelated observations. This concept will be familiar to anyone who has listened to my podcasts before: simplify and exaggeration, the first and last rule of journalism.

The result has been a flood of articles in the international press about the success of the Swiss/Austrian hosting of the euro 2008 championship, particularly in the UK. In order to keep my brain infused with news and opinion on what is going on on my Insel, I tend to listen to BBC radio in mornings. There I heard one radio correspondent utter with virtual disbelief how much fun he had over here and how the atmosphere of the matches had almost universally been a positive and pleasant one.

Another British newspaper had an article, which in an almost apologetic tone, was headlined “I love Zurich”. A guilty confession indeed and an indication perhaps that many were intent on coming to Switzerland and Austria and finding fault with countries that rarely get appreciated for what they offer.

In terms of my own European championship experience, I have been impressed with the way that Zurich has managed to integrate the event into their daily lives. Far from being the unwelcoming and miserable bunch that some feared they would be on the eve of the championships, it seems that everyone has pretty much entered into the spirit of the games. Organisationally, of course, the Swiss demonstrated a spectacular grasp of what is necessary to make a public event a success and not a heaving, unpleasant and dangerous mass of drunken louts stoked up by a video wall.

Drinking a beer in the fan mile while watching the games was a pleasant, safe and straightforward experience – and gave Zurich the opportunity do what it loves doing best in summer. Pretending that it is in fact a Mediterranean resort town – which while not strictly true, isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds.

Alongside these furtive admissions of admiration, indignant journalists take back with them a sense of righteousness about things they have witnessed aboard and spend the first week back at their desks writing stories like: “Why can’t Britain host a football championships like the Austrians?” or “Why can’t London be more like Vienna?” or “Why can’t British trains be more like the Swiss?” To which I can only respond, why indeed?

The Big Swim

One of my favourite subjects this, but one that I will return to again and again because for me it sums up all that is good about Zurich and Switzerland: the outdoor pool. After a winter of generally sloth-like behaviour, during which I did very little towards maintaining a generally acceptable level of health and fitness, I emerged from my hibernation on Pfingsten weekend and decided that swimming would be the thing to do. Ok, I admit I was cajoled into doing it but the achievement is no less notable for that.

As a child I was a keen swimmer. I was a member of a swim team. I was fairly good at backstroke. I never got the hang of butterfly, but I mean really, who does? I dived to the bottom of the pool in my pyjamas to rescue a rubberised brick off the bottom of the deep-end. This seemed significant in 1987. I am not sure I would feel the same way now. I have never, thankfully, had to rescue anyone from the bottom of a swimming pool, least of all when wearing my nightclothes. Who knows though. It may happen.

But then through my teenage years, the thought of appearing in swimming trunks in public clearly become a problem and I didn't really go swimming again until, well, May 18th this year. So there you go. A history of my swimming career. All this to say that now that I have started again I am amazed at what I have been missing these past 20 years. I have also managed to get over the swimming trunks issue just in time for the Swiss authorities to follow their french counterparts in introducing bizarre clothing laws for swimming pools, under which long swimming shorts are banned as unhygenic and skimpy ones favored. Kind of like reverse sharia.

Anyway. Swimming seems to me to be the most natural form of exercise: it works all sorts of muscles that would usually require a fairly specialised piece of gym equipment and the kind of fetishistic attention to bodybuilding detail that no healthy or sane person should be able to muster. It works you out without tiring you out. It is eminently relaxing. Your brain gets lulled into a pleasant state of zombie like peacefulness by the lapping of the water and the slosh from the movement of your limbs. I can easily dispatch my 10 laps of the pool while switching off my brain.

My favourite swimming location has to be the outdoor pool at the Dolder. Now I am fully aware that outdoor pools exist in many different locations on this planet. In London for instance the 1930s Lidos are undergoing a kind of renaissance too. But none are quite like the Swiss in terms of their crystal waters. Their functional changing facilities. Their pristine grounds. Invariably, when I get there, there is not a soul around and I like to imagine that I am in fact a privileged quest of Mr. Dolder himself. Its about the only way it will ever happen.

Co-hosts and rivals

The jokes are legion and the rivalry runs back for hundreds of years: Switzerland and Austria are traditionally at loggerheads but have put their differences behind them to help co-host the Euro 2008 football fest. As we enter the second week of this goal-scoring bonanza, its worth a look at the relationship between these two countries.

“What’s the difference between downtown Zurich and the Vienna Central Cemetery on a Friday night?” asked an Austrian friend of mine when I enquired about the rivalry between her nation and Switzerland. “There’s more going on at the cemetery.”

As jokes go its hardly original, but it betrays the deeply ingrained rivalries that exist between Austria and Switzerland, neighbouring countries that share just 160 kms of border. To each nation, the others are somehow slow, backward or boring, and representative of the yokel-ish character that both cultures have tried hard to shed in the years since the end of World War Two.

Now the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament is intended to bring the two countries closer together, by dispersing the competition’s matches, and the expected millions of visiting fans and their spending money, across eight cities – four Swiss and four Austrian. But examples of cross-border cooperation appear few.

One exception is the ‘Swiss Beach’ project at Strandbar Hermann on Vienna’s Danube Canal, an adaptation of a popular urban ‘beach bar’ the likes of which have sprung up all over European cities in recent summers. Austrians and their guests will be treated to Swiss flag decoration, rösti, raclette and Swiss music (including hits in dialect) – but presumably not Swiss beer or Swiss prices.

The reasons for Swiss-Austrian rivalry go back years but, as with many other countries, they have been kept alive through sporting events. Austrian football fans gleefully recall the 1954 World Cup quarter final in Lausanne in which the visitors beat Switzerland 7-5 in a 35-degrees-celsius heat wave. Austria’s form has since fallen: they are ranked 92nd by FIFA. That puts them alongside countries Thailand, Syria and Iceland... Not exactly premiere league.

However, Austria has beaten Switzerland in terms of wins in international matches played by 25 to 10. There were 5 draws. But Switzerland is the better exporter of national talent: 77 percent of Switzerland’s home-grown footballers play in foreign teams. Just 29 percent of Austrians do the same.

To my mind Austria offers better cuisine (the Wiener Schnitzel is unbeatable) and its people are the more gracious hosts. The Swiss are far more functional, dare I say it more stylish, and certainly more international. However, Austria's culture is heaving with the richness of its imperial past: you can spend days in museums admiring Sisi's spoon collection or tour the various palaces built and then abandoned by Empress Maria Theresa.

And to end, my favorite Swiss-Austrian joke which manages to be offensive to the Swiss, the Austrians and Blondes at the same time. My apologies in advance therefore. "What happens when the blonde crosses the border from Switzerland to Austria? Switzerland's IQ increases massively. So does that of Austria."

Football's Coming Home

It's coming home. It's coming home. Football is coming home again. Well, that would be Britain's contribution to footballing culture dealt with then. As the Euro 2008 competition kicks off, I am reminded again that Britain will not be there. No Beckham. No drunken hooligans. And that's just the footballers' wives I am talking about...

My weekly contributions are normally gloriously sports free. I am not a big sports fan and as a child would happily build a scale-version of the Eiffel tower out of Lego bricks rather than kick around a pig's bladder and try to aim it between the two discarded school jumpers that served as goal-posts.

However, like all fair weather sports fans it has fallen to me on this, the first day of the UEFA Euro 2008 Championships, to decide which team to support in this competition. A tough decision at the best of times. And even tougher when you don't have a clue what's going on and your loyalties are split three ways between three countries that are close to one's heart: Austria, Germany and, of course, Switzerland.

Let's begin with Austria: when I lived there eight years ago, a Croatian guy named Otto Baric was in charge of the soccer team. He was full of gloriously incomprehensible theories about playing styles and philosophies about the world. Unfortunately Austria didn't win very often and he was sacked. Still, he was good value and his press conferences made my day. Since then, it doesn't look much like the team have progressed far. Perhaps he needs to return from retirement?

Ranking 101st in the world by FIFA, the Austrians are shall we say a little out of their league alongside their peers from Croatia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Germany. Their choice of black for their away strip kind of says it all. I hope they will do well. But there are many, even some of their best supporters, who fear they will not. A repeat of their 7-5 drubbing of the Swiss at the 1954 World Cup would be fun but appears unlikely.

And so to the Swiss -- a team I should really support if nothing else because somewhere along the line my television license fee goes towards a nanosecond of their wages. I worry though about their form and the pressures of performing in front of a home audience: local support can lift the players up but it can also create additional stress.

Coach Kuhn has other issues on his mind too after the dramatic fire-brigade assisted rescue of his poorly wife from the roof of their attic apartment this weekend. She spent some time in hospital and is hopefully on the mind. We wish her well and hope Khun can return to focusing on making the Swiss national team a success. The apparently misnamed Tranquillo Bernetta and his teammate Alexander Frei are the ones to watch. But very much like their milita army, the Swiss have a reputation for strength in defence and a paucity of attacking spirit... Must be the result of that military service. Christ though, Switzerland beat Liechtenstein 3-0 -- isn't that enough?

Well, frankly, no its not and so finally, in the absence of the Brits, I turn to Germans. Having watched them in action in the 2006 World Cup it is clear that the Germans are on a roll right now. They might have a reputation for arrogance, who knows, but if you want to pick a winner, this one would appear in my opinion to be a safe bet. Guided by Jogi Loew and his amazing head of hair, the Germans have picked the prime spot to spend time during the event -- Locarno -- so they will be the only ones spared the lashings of rain that are forecast to engulf the AlpenNordSeite. And for that reason alone, they will undoubtedly do well.