LAFAYETTE - Match Report 1.5 - Allez Suisse!

    I am not going to beat around the bush - I have enjoyed this World Cup so much thus far.  Plenty of goals and no draws through the first eight games, and all the games, even the blowouts, were entertaining to watch.  I talked with great people, watched good soccer, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

    Then, when the fourth day of action came around, I had a team playing that I actually cared about, and for a couple brief hours, the entire feeling changed.  First, let me give a bit of context: my parents lived in Geneva while I was in college, and I have aunts, uncles, and cousins that I visit in the Bern area.  Thus, I am a huge fan of the Swiss national team.  So for the entire 2.5 hour drive from Chicago to Lafayette, Indiana (the stopover spot I had chosen to watch the Swiss game), the elation that I had felt in the previous days of the tournament slowly gave way to excruciating nervousness.  I didn’t have many people to share my anxiety with, however.  When I arrived at Professor Joe’s, a pizza bar in Lafayette, just before the noon kickoff, the only other person there was the bartender.  Two men and two women had walked in by halftime, although I didn’t talk to them much.  I was too nervous and saddened after Ecuador had taken the 1-0 lead, and they weren’t paying much attention to the game in any case.  In the second half, I started getting the others into it with a loud whoop to celebrate Switzerland’s equalizer.  While this does earn me some weird looks, I didn’t care, because the Swiss were level, and now the others were watching the match with me.

    Then came the moment that, to me, shows how just one person can get a whole crowd (or at least a small group) into the game.  With less than a minute remaining and the game tied at 1-1, Ecuador came streaming down the pitch, and one of their attackers seemed to wriggle free of his defender with the ball.  Everyone in the bar gasped, and I felt my heart sink into the depths of my stomach, 100% sure that Switzerland had just lost.  Then Swiss midfielder Valon Behrami made a fantastic tackle to stop the attack, and was suddenly sprinting up the field himself.  As he played a good ball out to Rodriguez, all the people in the bar gave shouts of anticipation.  Rodriguez’s cross found Haris Seferovic, and Seferovic found the back of the net.  A big “woah” came up from the four patrons and the bartender, and I let out a gigantic shriek of delight.  Everyone was clapping along with me, genuinely happy that the one person who had dragged them into the game ended up overjoyed.