Today I'm going back 27 years to 2nd July 1994 and the USA94 World Cup Round of 16 game between Switzerland and Spain at the RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington DC. In one of those strange coincidences that seem to be thrown up regularly, today's Euro 2020 will also feature a match between the same two countries. Maybe it's a chance for a little revenge for Switzerland?
The decision to buy tickets for the World Cup in 1994 was taken long before England had been eliminated in the "Do I not like that" game in Rotterdam. Whether the Three Lions were going to be there or not, I certainly was and I did my usual thing of buying tickets directly from FIFA before the qualifiers were known and the draw had been made. I liked the excitement of seeing who I got to see. This particular trip was in two halves: that is East Coast and West Coast with a visit to Chicago to visit Rita's brother in between. This game formed part of the East Coast leg of the trip and involved us hiring a car so that we could drive between the games at Boston, New York / New Jersey and Washington DC.
I've never been to Washington DC (as opposed to Washington which is somewhere else entirely) before or since but it felt somewhat familiar as we did the tourist thing and visited the White House, the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial. Strangely I felt no urge to don face paint, furs or buffalo horns and invade government buildings and the visit passed off without incident.
The RFK Stadium has been in situ since 1961 and, if you want to visit it you will need to hurry up as it's scheduled for demolition next year. It's situated about two miles from the US Capitol Building and is a former home to the Washington Redskins American Football Team (since renamed the Washington Football Team due to cultural sensitivities) as well as various soccer teams including the Washington Diplomats, the Washington Whips and DC United. For the 1994 World Cup it had a capacity of 53,121 and was full for the game that I attended.
Spain had qualified for the Round of 16 by finishing second to Germany in Group C thereby eliminating South Korea and Bolivia. Switzerland also finished second in their Group behind Romania and level on points with the hosts USA who also qualified as one of the third placed teams with the best record.
Spain took the lead after 15 minutes following a breakaway goal scored by Real Madrid's Fernando Hierro. Hierro would later go on to finish his career as a Trotter at Bolton Wanderers in 2004/5 having won 3 Champions League and 5 La Liga titles. Switzerland did make a good game of it and we had to wait until the final quarter of the game for further goals which were scored by Luis Enrique (current head coach of Spain's national team) and the splendidly nicknamed Aitor "Txiki" Begiristain Mujika (no I don't know how to pronounce it either) who is apparently one of Manchester City's directors. 3-0 winners Spain progressed to the Quarter-Finals where they were knocked out an Italy side that was en route to the Final but let's save that for another day.
CRB Match No. 900
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