WM here we come!

I'm not a big football (soccer) fan, but we did watch the Switzerland-Turkey WM qualifying match last night. Switzerland lost 4-2, but since we had won the first match 2-0 and thanks to the away goals rule, Switzerland is on their way to the World Cup 2006.

Since I don't know enough to say if it was a good game or not, I'll just tell you what was really sad about it all. Starting from the arrival of the Swiss team in Istanbul on Monday it's been one abuse after another. It took about two hours for the team to clear passport control - Alex Frei's passport alone was examined for 20 minutes. You'd think almost two hours would be enough time to get the luggage to the gate, but after the passport control there was an additional 1 hour wait for the luggage. Whenever a team member tried to sit down on a luggage cart or on the non-moving luggage carosel they were abused by airport personel until they stood again. Mission accomplished, because the training for Monday night was cancelled.

Now, this is bad enough but compare it to when the Turkish team arrived in Switzerland: from wheels down in the Geneva airport to the time the team's bus drove away from the airport took about 20 minutes. (That would be the same 20 minutes passport control took to look through Alex Frei's passport, mock him, and make a big show of writing his name on a list and passing it to the other passport agent. Alex Frei went on to score the first goal of Wednesday's game, so I guess revenge is sweet.)

When the whistle sounded at game's end, the Swiss team sprinted like Carl Lewis for the locker room but not all of them made it there without being attacked. One player was sent to the hospital with internal bleeding (link auf Deutsch).

What is it with football fans?