Swiss 36 No. 23 - Stadio Comunale, Chiasso - FC Chiasso

FC Chiasso v FC Winterthur

Snow! Bloody snow in mid-April! We'd got ideas about traveling early to this match early so we could have a look around Switzerland's southern-most town but snow in Winterthur plus a miserable forecast down South provoked a re-think. It was also the day that Donny were to confirm an immediate return to the Championship. Yeah...more about that later.

Strangely, Winterthur's "Fanatics" supporter's club published two sets of public transport instructions for this match; an easy way and a stressful way. A 5:45 pm kick-off meant, for us that there was little point in the stressful version so we kept things simple. But was there some coded message in that offering of a stressful means of getting to Chiasso?

Despite the awful weather, we enjoyed a stress-free, comfortable trip down to Chiasso, obviously tuning in to our respective English football games at the appropriate time. As we arrived in Chiasso, Donny went a goal down in their match against Notts County. Automatic promotion was very much in the balance again. Another message?

We had plenty of time to get to the game and so had a bite to eat while listening to the first halves of our respective matches. On half-time we still had an hour to get from the station to the stadium. Easy!

Points Time.

Getting There

1 / 10.

First of all, with the rain, there weren't too many people around.  One of the ones who was said that as it had been raining solidly for two days, he didn't think the game would be on. Nahh! No way would Chiasso have allowed Winterthur and their fans to travel. He didn't know where the Stadio Comunale was though and nor did anyone else. Obviously one of those Community Stadia that the community know nothing about.

Outside the station was a pretty major bus-stop, but we couldn't see which bus was going to take us to the stadium. In the end, we resorted to asking every bus that stopped if they were going anywhere near the football stadium. They weren't but did tell us the bus that did. For anyone needing the information, it's the 517, which we obviously couldn't find on the bus timetables.

Time to crack out Google Maps, our standby that had got us out of problems two weeks running. This annoyed me somewhat because it meant I was going to miss the remainder of Donny's match commentary. Google Maps promptly showed us that the stadium was five minutes away. We went where it said to go and it wasn't a stadium so it was back to the bus stop where buses were pulling in again (and the match had kicked off). Hallelujah! One of the buses was the mythical 517 and it dropped us right outside the stadium. Choice words were said about how well community facilities in Chiasso are signposted and how clear bus timetables are in this part of the world. Donny had also lost.

Friendliness

8 / 10. Yes, Chiasso are a friendly little club. They started a bit shakily though. We didn't like the 18 SFr admission price and the security guys were a bit funny when the missus dropped her hat over on the wrong side of the barrier and I wanted to hop over to retrieve it.  Seeing I wasn't trying to mount a one-man pitch invasion, they were OK once they'd understood and when I fell on my backside on my first attempt to vault the barrier, they had fully appreciated to lack of threat offered by these strange English guys.

But Chiasso did win me over after the match. We went over to the opposite side of the ground for a beer at the end and they were happy to allow the Winti faithful to sing a few songs. As it should be. They did burn a Lugano pennant though. They don't seem to like them very much!

Safety

7 / 10. No issues with the ground, no fences, terracing a reasonable height but the security was a bit slack, perhaps understandably. No bag-check on the gate and no control on leaving then coming back into the ground.

View

5 / 10. Stadio Comunale, Chiasso is the third of the four Stadia in Tessin we have to visit on the Swiss 36 and up until now, it's the best, although it doesn't have much competition.  The stadium has a covered, seated main stand and open terracing the rest of the way around the ground. Unfortunately, there's a six-lane athletics track between the fans and the action, which pretty much ruins the view from the ends. But at least, unlike the other two Tessin clubs I've seen (Lugano and Bellinzona), they don't have visiting supporters suffering this awful view. Instead, visitors are given half of the terrace opposite the main stand and so have a decent view.

Atmosphere

5 / 10. The 250 fans who braved the horrible weather gave a reasonable account of themselves. Obviously, we didn't hear a thing from the seated section but the 7 Winti fans (including us) on the terrace were loud and proud. Good effort also from the Chiasso Kop but something a bit silly from the club.

A big tarpaulin separates the home Kop from the away fans so that they can't see each other. Without the tarpaulin, there would be a great opportunity for some banter between fans, needed when the gates are so small. How silly is the tarpaulin? Read on!

Refreshments

7 / 10. Football is weird. As I've said, seven Winterthur fans made the trip and braved the elements on the open away terrace. Another 15 or so watched from the comfort of the main stand. Us seven obviously couldn't be separately catered for, catering for seven is a non-starter. We did have two security guards though! To get a beer and a bite, we were directed out of the stadium and around to the main stand. Our tickets weren't checked at either end and we walked, of course with the home fans who emerged from behind their tarpaulin. We weren't accompanied around and mixed with home fans freely before returning to our respective sides of the tarpaulin. Strange!

Heineken beer was available from a reasonably well stocked bar. Foodwise, there were various Italian things cooking on a barbecue. I asked about one and was told it was a "salmonella". A dubious name, I know but it looked good and tasted better.

Overall

33 / 60. Main issue is sorting out directions to and from the stadium. Other than that, it's OK.

The Match

Didn't really make up for the awful conditions if I'm honest, but Winterthur won, so what can you say?

Unfortunately, Chiasso's lack of ability in informing the community where the Community Stadium actually is caused us to arrive at the stadium after 20 minutes. By this time it had all happened. On 18 minutes, Marco Aratore hit a shot against the underside of the bar and the rebound was hit against the post by Kris Kuzmanovic. In the end, Chiasso managed to scramble the ball out for a corner. The corner was duly placed by Kuzmanovic onto the head of Patrick Bengondo and Winti had the lead. I bet it was good, that bit!

Sadly, the rest of the game wasn't but in conditions where playing the ball on the deck was risky due to it failing to cross the swamp between the passer and the intended target, what could we expect? Winterthur made by far the better of the conditions but not by really creating themselves. Chiasso were simply stifled by a solid defensive performance.

So for the rest of the match, neither 'keeper was particularly troubled. The only talking point was Chiasso finishing the match with 9-men. Both dismissals came due to two bookable offences, the first in the 79th minute. Dragan Mihajovic was about to leave the field anyway but changed the decision to substitute him by ill-advisedly going out of his way to have a chat with the referee on his way off. The referee clearly didn't enjoy the conversation and showed him his second yellow. Apparently, his first had been for another obscenity expressed to the referee, heard all around the ground. I didn't hear it, I hadn't arrived. Silly though!

Emiliano Dudar took a slightly early bath in the final minute of the match for a second foul judged to be bad enough to merit a yellow.

Solid from Winterthur - but nothing more.

As ever, after the match the Winti players came over to celebrate with all seven of us in the away end. We were offered a beer in the bar after the match, which was gratefully accepted. And that was our downfall really. A combination of the beer from the team and Google Maps trying to direct me to Milan central station resulted in our missing the last train back to Winterthur (which we would have been pushed to get anyway). Still, an overnight in Tessin isn't the worst thing that could happen!

Swiss 36 No. 23: Stadio Comunale, Chiasso - FC Chiasso

FC Chiasso v FC Winterthur

Snow! Bloody snow in mid-April! We'd got ideas about traveling early to this match early so we could have a look around Switzerland's southern-most town but snow in Winterthur plus a miserable forecast down South provoked a re-think. It was also the day that Donny were to confirm an immediate return to the Championship. Yeah...more about that later.

Strangely, Winterthur's "Fanatics" supporter's club published two sets of public transport instructions for this match; an easy way and a stressful way. A 5:45 pm kick-off meant, for us that there was little point in the stressful version so we kept things simple. But was there some coded message in that offering of a stressful means of getting to Chiasso?

Despite the awful weather, we enjoyed a stress-free, comfortable trip down to Chiasso, obviously tuning in to our respective English football games at the appropriate time. As we arrived in Chiasso, Donny went a goal down in their match against Notts County. Automatic promotion was very much in the balance again. Another message?

We had plenty of time to get to the game and so had a bite to eat while listening to the first halves of our respective matches. On half-time we still had an hour to get from the station to the stadium. Easy!

Points Time.

Getting There

1 / 10.

First of all, with the rain, there weren't too many people around.  One of the ones who was said that as it had been raining solidly for two days, he didn't think the game would be on. Nahh! No way would Chiasso have allowed Winterthur and their fans to travel. He didn't know where the Stadio Comunale was though and nor did anyone else. Obviously one of those Community Stadia that the community know nothing about.

Outside the station was a pretty major bus-stop, but we couldn't see which bus was going to take us to the stadium. In the end, we resorted to asking every bus that stopped if they were going anywhere near the football stadium. They weren't but did tell us the bus that did. For anyone needing the information, it's the 517, which we obviously couldn't find on the bus timetables.

Time to crack out Google Maps, our standby that had got us out of problems two weeks running. This annoyed me somewhat because it meant I was going to miss the remainder of Donny's match commentary. Google Maps promptly showed us that the stadium was five minutes away. We went where it said to go and it wasn't a stadium so it was back to the bus stop where buses were pulling in again (and the match had kicked off). Hallelujah! One of the buses was the mythical 517 and it dropped us right outside the stadium. Choice words were said about how well community facilities in Chiasso are signposted and how clear bus timetables are in this part of the world. Donny had also lost.

Friendliness

8 / 10. Yes, Chiasso are a friendly little club. They started a bit shakily though. We didn't like the 18 SFr admission price and the security guys were a bit funny when the missus dropped her hat over on the wrong side of the barrier and I wanted to hop over to retrieve it. Seeing I wasn't trying to mount a one-man pitch invasion, they were OK once they'd understood and when I fell on my backside on my first attempt to vault the barrier, they had fully appreciated to lack of threat offered by these strange English guys.

But Chiasso did win me over after the match. We went over to the opposite side of the ground for a beer at the end and they were happy to allow the Winti faithful to sing a few songs. As it should be. They did burn a Lugano pennant though. They don't seem to like them very much!

Safety

7 / 10. No issues with the ground, no fences, terracing a reasonable height but the security was a bit slack, perhaps understandably. No bag-check on the gate and no control on leaving then coming back into the ground.

View

5 / 10. Stadio Comunale, Chiasso is the third of the four Stadia in Tessin we have to visit on the Swiss 36 and up until now, it's the best, although it doesn't have much competition. The stadium has a covered, seated main stand and open terracing the rest of the way around the ground. Unfortunately, there's a six-lane athletics track between the fans and the action, which pretty much ruins the view from the ends. But at least, unlike the other two Tessin clubs I've seen (Lugano and Bellinzona), they don't have visiting supporters suffering this awful view. Instead, visitors are given half of the terrace opposite the main stand and so have a decent view.

Atmosphere

5 / 10. The 250 fans who braved the horrible weather gave a reasonable account of themselves. Obviously, we didn't hear a thing from the seated section but the 7 Winti fans (including us) on the terrace were loud and proud. Good effort also from the Chiasso Kop but something a bit silly from the club.

A big tarpaulin separates the home Kop from the away fans so that they can't see each other. Without the tarpaulin, there would be a great opportunity for some banter between fans, needed when the gates are so small. How silly is the tarpaulin? Read on!

Refreshments

7 / 10. Football is weird. As I've said, seven Winterthur fans made the trip and braved the elements on the open away terrace. Another 15 or so watched from the comfort of the main stand. Us seven obviously couldn't be separately catered for, catering for seven is a non-starter. We did have two security guards though! To get a beer and a bite, we were directed out of the stadium and around to the main stand. Our tickets weren't checked at either end and we walked, of course with the home fans who emerged from behind their tarpaulin. We weren't accompanied around and mixed with home fans freely before returning to our respective sides of the tarpaulin. Strange!

Heineken beer was available from a reasonably well stocked bar. Foodwise, there were various Italian things cooking on a barbecue. I asked about one and was told it was a "salmonella". A dubious name, I know but it looked good and tasted better.

Overall

33 / 60. Main issue is sorting out directions to and from the stadium. Other than that, it's OK.

The Match

Didn't really make up for the awful conditions if I'm honest, but Winterthur won, so what can you say?

Unfortunately, Chiasso's lack of ability in informing the community where the Community Stadium actually is caused us to arrive at the stadium after 20 minutes. By this time it had all happened. On 18 minutes, Marco Aratore hit a shot against the underside of the bar and the rebound was hit against the post by Kris Kuzmanovic. In the end, Chiasso managed to scramble the ball out for a corner. The corner was duly placed by Kuzmanovic onto the head of Patrick Bengondo and Winti had the lead. I bet it was good, that bit!

Sadly, the rest of the game wasn't but in conditions where playing the ball on the deck was risky due to it failing to cross the swamp between the passer and the intended target, what could we expect? Winterthur made by far the better of the conditions but not by really creating themselves. Chiasso were simply stifled by a solid defensive performance.

So for the rest of the match, neither 'keeper was particularly troubled. The only talking point was Chiasso finishing the match with 9-men. Both dismissals came due to two bookable offences, the first in the 79th minute. Dragan Mihajovic was about to leave the field anyway but changed the decision to substitute him by ill-advisedly going out of his way to have a chat with the referee on his way off. The referee clearly didn't enjoy the conversation and showed him his second yellow. Apparently, his first had been for another obscenity expressed to the referee, heard all around the ground. I didn't hear it, I hadn't arrived. Silly though!

Emiliano Dudar took a slightly early bath in the final minute of the match for a second foul judged to be bad enough to merit a yellow.

Solid from Winterthur - but nothing more.

As ever, after the match the Winti players came over to celebrate with all seven of us in the away end. We were offered a beer in the bar after the match, which was gratefully accepted. And that was our downfall really. A combination of the beer from the team and Google Maps trying to direct me to Milan central station resulted in our missing the last train back to Winterthur (which we would have been pushed to get anyway). Still, an overnight in Tessin isn't the worst thing that could happen!

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Swiss 36 No. 22: Stade de la Maladière - Neuchâtel Xamax 1912

FC Biel - Bienne v FC Winterthur

No, I haven't lost my marbles, FC Biel - Bienne, the only club I know with a hyphen in their name, are currently temporary tenants in Neuchâtel Xamax's Stade de la Maladière while their own stadium, the Gurzelen Stadion is renovated. Sadly, the renovations mean that we will not be visiting the Gurzelen on the Swiss 36 tour, well, at least not this season. On the plus side, Biel - Bienne's temporary move to Neuchâtel gives us a valid excuse to visit Stade de la Maladière.

Until January 2012, Xamax were a Swiss Super League side, but that status ended suddenly and in controversy. 12th May 2011, Chechen businessman, Bulat Chagaev took over the club. Immediately he demonstrated a strange motivational technique. Xamax had made it to the Swiss Cup final on 29th May but were trailing Sion 2 : 0. Chagaev reportedly entered the dressing room at half-time shouting "I'll kill you all" in an attempt to motivate the Xamax players. Xamax didn't concede any more goals but didn't score any either.

A day later and the coach, Bernhard Challendes was fired, the administrative staff resigned 3 days later. These were the first in quite a number of employees who became casualties during Chagaev's reign, including sporting director, ex Brazil ace Sonny Anderson. By the end of July, Chagaev was claiming to be the victim of a conspiracy against him (I struggle to think why such a nice guy could think such a thing!). August saw Chagaev fire his newly appointed chairman shortly before firing his second coach at the beginning of September. By the end of September, the supporter's club had been "dumped" and shortly after that the Swiss football league filed their first complaint against Chagaev and Xamax over "lack of information about the takeover".

October saw an agent file a bankruptcy case against the club; a strike by the players' union over non-payment of wages and the firing of a second sporting director. In November, the Bank of America confirmed that documents Chagaev had used to demonstrate how he had access to $35M were fake and he was formerly charged with forgery.

The inevitable eventually happened in January as somewhat predictably, the players returned from a Dubai training camp. They found out that the Swiss football league had withdrawn Xamax's licence due to suspected fraud and failure to demonstrate that they could meet their financial obligations. Chagaev was arrested in Geneva accused of fraud and financial mis-management. The debt of the club was estimated at at 30M Swiss Francs.

Xamax didn't play another match that season and their results were expunged from league records. The Swiss football league punished Xamax in a similar way to the punishment of Rangers in Scotland only Xamax were relegated four divisions as opposed to the three division relegation suffered by Rangers. In 2012 / 13, they play their football in the 2. Liga Interregional - Group 3, an amateur, regional league in the fifth tier of Swiss football.

And Chagaev? Well after serving 4 months in custody, he is now facing expulsion from Switzerland.

Time to talk about Biel - Bienne, and I should deal with that hyphen. Biel - Bienne, like Freiburg - Fribourg and Bern - Berne, sits on the Röstigraben (lit. Rösti-ditch), the boundary between French-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking Switzerland. The name is a tongue-in-cheek term basically suggesting that you won't get anything as mundane as a Rösti (a very tasty German-Swiss dish with grated potato as its main ingredient) in the sophisticated French speaking bit. Biel - Bienne tend to make a bigger deal of sitting on this boundary than the other towns and cities on the line hence the name of the club being such that none of the local population is inadvertently insulted. But, for me, it's a pain in the bum, so they are plain Biel from now on!

3G, Streaming and a Phone - The answer to split loyalties

On the day of this match, I faced a big dilemma. My hometown club, Doncaster Rovers are leading English League 1 and were playing a crucial game against fourth placed Swindon Town. Very unusually for Doncaster, this match was being televised live. But then there was my adopted Swiss side, FC Winterthur visiting FC Biel and playing in a stadium that otherwise was not going to get a Swiss 36 visit due to the extreme naughtiness of the resident club. What to do?!

Obviously, I decided, as all should that watching football live in a stadium should take precedence over watching football on TV. So off we set, with me moaning just a little bit.

"I wish I could watch the Rovers AND go to to game" I complained.

Wait a minute. If this match was being streamed, surely I could stream it to my IPhone? It was a great plan and thanks to a great link supplied by my forum friends and Puffin Browser, I was able to watch the whole of the match from South Yorkshire mostly during the train journey to Neuchâtel.

Points Time.

Getting There.

9 / 10. Really easy on the train as Neuchâtel is on the main Zürich / Geneva line, and so it was a single train from Winterthur. From the station, the stadium was about 10 minutes walk. I didn't see any signposts, but I don't think I took my eyes off my phone screen long enough to see any!

Friendliness.

5 / 10. Just as we were climbing the stairs to go into the stadium, Jamie McCoombe scored for Donny and had me bouncing around like a loony. Naturally, I was keen to revel in this moment from every possible angle. While I was reveling, the security guard was wanting to check my rucksack. I unzipped everything and offered it up.

"Is there any food or drink in here?" he asked.

What is this, Swiss "I don't want to do my job" week! I said that I didn't think so.

"What's that?" he asked, gesturing towards the cup of enhanced lemonade that I was holding.

"Can I take it in?"

"No"

"Then I'll stand here and drink it" (there wasn't much left). "Sorry" I added. "This is a really important football match"

That got me a real look of disdain, which was fine because it allowed me to pointedly stand there ignoring him. He wanted the cup though, so I drank up and handed it over.

He then faffed about giving me a cloakroom ticket so the cup could be reclaimed and I went into the stadium to find a quiet corner of the concourse and watch the rest of the game.

Once the distraction of Donny extending their lead in league 1 was over, I was able to look around, and what a great little stadium the Maladière is!

Safety.

7 / 10. The stadium is a modern, 12000 capacity all-seater with a wide and smart concourse all the way

around. The only issues I had were a little fencing at the designated away end (closed for this fixture) and an error by the stewards.

Wearing full FC Winterthur regalia including shirts, scarves and a jacket with a huge FC Winterthur badge on the back, we walked into the home supporters area. We weren't the only ones to make this mistake either. We'd already hung our flags and had gone in search of refreshments when a steward decided to point out that we were in the home fans' area. Our tickets were valid in both the Winterthur and Biel areas, which is also stupid if you are bothering to segregate.

For us, it wouldn't have mattered but on a different game, with more volatile fans, that could have been a problem.

View.

9 / 10. Great all the way around. The only problem would be if you were behind that fenced area.

Atmosphere.

4 / 10. Only 580 attended in the 12000 capacity stadium. The club were sensible enough only to open two sides but its still a few people in amongst a lot of empty seats. All the atmosphere was provided by the 100 or so Winti fans who travelled and made the match a home fixture.

Refreshments.

5 / 10. Mrs Duck and I had quite a tasty burger, which was a welcome departure from the standard sausage. The beer was Heineken, which is bad enough but insisting on selling it in 330ml beakers was just annoying.

Overall.

39 / 60. The stadium is great. They just need to work on the peripherals.

The Match

Could I possibly get a great game to watch live after watching the main event in South Yorkshire ended in the way I wanted? You bet I could!

The opening exchanges were fairly even, an effort from Aratore going wide for the visitors while Biel did manage to bring a save from Leite through Charles Doudin. The game burst into life in the 34th minute. Marco Aratore got free on the right and his cross was clearly handled by Mehdi Challendes. Despite the Grobbelaar-like antics of Mossi, Biel's young 'keeper, Kristian Kuzmanovic made no mistake in hitting the bottom left-corner. A minute later and Winti were back again. This time Aratore didn't want the palaver of a penalty and so he hit an excellent shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the area. For Biel, it was now a case of holding on to half-time to re-group.

This they duly did and after the break they came out guns blazing. Four minutes into the second half, Giuseppe Morello pulled a goal back and four minutes after that he had a brace and it was game on. The home were pushing for a third but in doing so defence was being forgotten and Winterthur did take advantage, Jonas Elmer breaking through and finishing coolly. To finish the scoring, the two-goal lead was restored when Patrick Bengondo put his head where few would dare in making sure a goal-mouth scramble ended up with the ball where it should finish from a attacking side's point of view.

With three minutes to go, Christian Leite showed his opposite number in the Biel goal how a penalty should be handled from a goalkeeping point of view and it was a good afternoon's work for the visitors.