Who Knew?

Switzerland kicked off it’s World Cup Campaign yesterday afternoon against one of the top favorites to win this year’s World Cup, Spain.  Lot’s of Euro press thought it would be a cakewalk for Spain, especially in the first round.  Unfortunately, I was in a meeting when this game kicked off, but fortunately, I could check the FIFA Matchtracker.

After Switzerland gained the lead and the second half progressed, I was happy that the meeting ended and I could try to rush back to the hotel in the rain to catch the end of the match (BTW, Geneva is almost ALWAYS overcast with drizzle…it’s kind of like the Seattle of Europe).  On the tram ride back to the hotel you could see people standing outside the many bars and restaurants with TV’s.

Go with your strengths

I rushed back to my room and turned on the TV and managed to catch injury time.  As Spain missed chances cheers could be heard in Geneva.  I though the cheers I heard for Brazil the night before were loud, these were quite louder.  When the final whistle blew with the final score 1-0, Geneva came to life.  The TV announcer must have said something equivalent to Al Micheal’s iconic “Do you believe in miracles?!”, but it was in French and he was very excited and may have been in the middle of a group hug in their announcing booth.  Cheers echoed through the city and honking horns filled the air.

For hours.

I went out looking for some sort of localized group, but couldn’t find any.  All I found were folks walking around doing their daily business but found the locals to be wearing bigsmiles despite the miserable weather.  People just drove their cars around honking horns, pumping fists, flashing the ‘V’ sign with their fingers.  Some cars had window flags, some had flags taped to their roofs, some had flags taped to their trunks, some had all of the flag options.

Mobile Celebration

Things would calm for a few minutes until a wave of revelers or cars came through and it would all start over again.

While I couldn’t find a big celebration group, I did find that there was a big celebration over at FestiFoot….and I did find some pictures of the celebration there.

Eventually the excitement died down, attention moved on to the final game of the day, and it’s Geneva on Wednesday night (Geneva is especially slow on weekday nights).

I looked upon this trip as something were I could see the World Cup with a little more of an international perspective, but the amazing Swiss upset made this the place to be on Wednesday.

Though I’m quick to remind people that WE beat Spain 2-0 last year.

Celebrating the upset

Smoke, Flares and Flags.....kind of reminds me of someplace