What was it like to have attended a World Cup game?

At the time Roman Müller of Baar booked his ticket to watch a World Cup game last Tuesday afternoon in St Petersburg, he did not know that Switzerland would be playing against Sweden there, though he realised there was this possibility. While the Swiss team lost (1.0), Müller (on the right in the photograph) and his wife (next to him) along with compatriots Claudia Dalla Palma and Urs Vogt (also in the photograph), the fans had a most enjoyable time. What he had considered at the time he made the booking was to go to a place which was culturally interesting, too, not going to Russia solely for sporting reasons. Indeed, they spent the first few days looking round. “St Petersburg really is the “Venice of the north,”” he said. “There is so much to see; I could well imagine going again.”

Not that this was the first World Cup game Müller, who runs his own electrical business, had seen, as he had previously watched Sweden play against Paraguay in 2006, this match also resulting in a 1-0 victory for the Scandinavian kingdom. “I thought that, as the World Cup will not be played within Europe again over the next few years, I had better take this opportunity,” he said.

So last Saturday Müller and his wife flew to St Petersburg, not needing to apply for visas as they already had tickets for the game, which they had to carry with them at all times. He was not expecting anything particularly marvellous in Russia’s former capital city, but was pleasantly surprised. “We found the people most welcoming," he said, “even though communication was restricted to basic English. And the restaurants were good, too, even if the fayre was rather simple.” They thought it was very good that the photographs of the food on the menu were very much like the actual dish served, “which is not the case everywhere,” he added. He was also struck by how clean the city was, with ashtrays everywhere. “And none of us had anything stolen, and neither had any of the other Swiss fans we met.” Only the weather had been a bit disappointing, the sun only coming out as the match was in progress.

Müller thought that holding the World Cup will have been a good thing for the Russians. “They are rather reserved as a people,” he said. “It was good for them to have been able to come into contact with jolly fans from abroad,” adding how he thought how well behaved these away fans were.

As for the match itself, the electrician noticed how Swiss fans seemed to have been allocated seats all over the stadium, so there was no one particular Swiss fan area.

As to the Swiss players’ performance, he detected that that element of passion, so evident in the match against Serbia, just was not there. However, this was very much in evidence on the part of the Swedish trainer, whom they were able to watch quite closely, gesticulating angrily on occasions.

At the end of the match, the Swiss fans reacted quite soberly. “There were not loads of them in tears or anything,” he said. “Life goes on, doesn’t it?” he added.

Who should they bump into outside the stadium but Dario Cologna, the Swiss gold-medallist cross-country skier, who kindly posed for photographs with them.

All very much an eventful time the Müllers and co. will remember for years to come.