Today I'm going back just 3 years to 3rd July 2018 and the World Cup Round of 16 game between Sweden and Switzerland. As usual I was struggling with managing my annual leave at work and, if I was going to attend the 2018 World Cup, it was going to be for one game only. I did my usual trick of applying for tickets without knowing who was going to be playing but I had always wanted to visit St Petersburg and, as far as Russian World Cup venues went, this one was more likely to provide a more European experience as opposed to some of the other venues in deepest, darkest Russia such as Nizhny Norovgod or Yekaterinburg. I would travel with my Canadian buddy who was relishing the thrill of a bit of adventuring in Russia despite not being a huge soccer fan. We applied for our Fan IDs which would get around the requirement for a Russian visa and then counted down the days.
All I can say is that St Petersburg was a lovely place. Our arrival at St Petersburg airport (via Moscow) was followed by a high speed taxi ride to our budget price City centre accommodation. Talk about a white knuckle ride! No chance to explore would miss out on St Petersburg's Winter Palace which was beautiful but I would say that I enjoyed visiting the FIFA Fan Zone with it's big screens and celebratory atmosphere almost as much. St Petersburg didn't feel particularly Russian at all and if I had to pick a similar City I'd say it was very much like Paris. Certainly the vehicles on the streets had changed markedly since my previous visit to Russia in the early 1990's when all cars seemed to be typically eastern European Zil's and such like. Now it was all Mercedes and Audis. There was a definite pavement cafe culture and we watched the world go by whilst sipping on a Starbucks.
The match took place at the Krestovsky Stadium, home of Zenit St Petersburg but frequently referred to as the Gazprom Arena for sponsorship reasons. It was readily accessible from St Petersburg's underground rail network and is actually located on an island. Capacity for the World Cup was just short of 64,500 and the attendance at our match was almost at capacity.
Sweden had advanced to the Round of 16 by winning Group F. Group F became famous for being the graveyard of German hopes. The Germans finished dead last having lost against both Mexico and South Korea. Undefeated Switzerland had finished second in Group E and had creditably drawn with Brazil along the way. So yes, our game could have been Germany against Brazil. But it wasn't!
The 2018 World Cup was arguably the best ever with dramatic match after dramatic match seemingly every night. Suffice is to say that this match wasn't one of the tournament highlights but it was a pleasure to be there nonetheless. The game was decided by a Forsberg goal scored via a wicked deflection after 66 minutes. The goal wasn't so very different from the deflected goal that Switzerland's keeper Sommer conceded against Spain earlier this week. Sommer was impressive but there's not a lot you can do about huge deflections. Sweden still had time for a potential penalty that was rightly overturned by VAR but they hung on to win 1-0 and enter the Quarter-Finals where they would meet England. England had won, on penalties in their own Round of 16 match that same day and I watched it on a tiny screen in our local St Petersburg bar. Did I tell you that I love World Cups?
CRB Match No. 2232
Comments
Post a Comment