With an unimpressive post-war record in soccer, Austria and Switzerland seem unlikely hosts for Euro 2008, but the two nations are determined to make the most of it
IT'S 20 YEARS since Joxer went to Stuttgart with his German phrasebook and jump leads for the van. Euro '88 was Ireland's coming out on soccer's international stage but, two decades on, there'll be no Ray Houghton moment against England when the European Championships get underway in Austria and Switzerland next Saturday.
Neither Ireland nor England have made it to the finals, ensuring only a modest build-up of interest.
It's no different on the continent: fresh memories of Germany's glorious World Cup two summers ago have dampened expectations that Austria and Switzerland can offer anything to compete. But with six million fans arriving in the coming days, organisers hope to silence the doubters and, through Euro 2008, give their countries a better image than they've enjoyed in recent years.
Over the last decade Switzerland's traditional image - Heidi, the Alps and Toblerone chocolate - has taken a beating: the scandal of how Swiss banks profited from the Holocaust was followed by the rise of the far-right Swiss People's Party with its xenophobic election campaigns.
Recent headlines from neighbouring Austria, meanwhile, were enough to challenge the age-old wisdom that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Austria had just cranked up its Euro 2008 publicity offensive into top gear when Elisabeth Fritzl stepped blinking into the daylight after 24 years in a secret cellar where she gave birth to seven children by her father.
That media circus was only winding down when a PR consultant from Vienna hacked his family to death with an axe, then drove halfway across the country to finish off his parents and father-in-law.
It raised eyebrows once more about the choice of tournament hosts Austria and Switzerland, better known for their skiing than their soccer.
Switzerland is home to the International Olympic Committee as well as soccer governing bodies Fifa and Uefa, but since the 1954 World Cup has only ever hosted winter sports events. Meanwhile, Austria's most famous balls aren't the soccer kind, but the "Mozartkugeln" chocolate drops from Salzburg, the birthplace of the composer.
With middling-to-poor soccer teams, the Austrians and Swiss have been nonplussed by the build-up to Euro 2008: a recent survey suggested that one in four Austrians will ignore the championship entirely. Over 10,000 Austrians have signed an online petition demanding that the Austrian team - currently 101st in the Fifa world ranking - withdraw from the championship.
"The Austrian team insults the aesthetic sense of the spectator," complained petition founder Michael Kriess, son of a former Austrian international player. After a nine-match winless run last year, he said Austria should do the decent thing and hand its place to a country such as Ireland that failed to qualify. Anything would be better than watching ageing Austrian stars and second-rate spotty teenagers who, he says, "palefacedly contemplate yet another gruelling encounter with the ball and the opponent".
As most tournament merchandise lingers, untouched, on the shelves, a Viennese designer is struggling to keep up with orders for her Euro 2008 T-shirt bearing the slogan: "Hosted By Losers".
UNLIKE RAINDROPS ON roses and whiskers on kittens, soccer hasn't counted among Austria's favourite things since the 1938 Anschluss. The "Wunderteam" that once ran rings around their European rivals - including a remarkable 6-0 win against Germany in pre-Nazi Berlin - was ruined by the forced integration into the German national side. "There wasn't really any team spirit anymore due to national rivalries," said Matthias Marschik, an expert on Austrian soccer in the Third Reich.
Apart from a few brief flashes of brilliance, Austria's postwar soccer history has been a tale of depressing decline, while the record in Switzerland isn't much better. Ranked 48th in the world by FIFA, the Swiss failed to qualify for the European Championships until 1996 when the tournament was expanded from eight to 16 teams.
Since then, their special talent has been finishing bottom of their group. Euro 2008 sceptics point to the dubious soccer record the host countries share: Austria's 7-5 defeat of Switzerland in a quarter- final of the 1954 World Cup is still the highest-scoring game in that tournament's history.
Their countries might not be strongholds of soccer excellence, but organisers promise that the EU border between Austria and Switzerland won't get in the way of fans anxious to see world-class soccer. They have learned from difficulties at the 2000 championship in Belgium and the Netherlands and have agreed a special Euro 2008 visa allowing unhindered passage between the two countries. One-off security agreements have been put in place to allow police from both countries manage border controls. The two countries will have 60,000 police officers and soldiers on duty, including 2,500 foreign police, by next Saturday when Switzerland play the Czech Republic in Basel and Portugal face Turkey in Geneva.
For Austrians, the real battle begins a day later in Vienna, when they face Croatia, once a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Feelings are running high since Croatian newspaper Vecernji list trumpeted this week that their national side had nothing to fear from the "laughable Austrians with their . . . porous defence and chaotic midfield".
Organisers have sold Euro 2008 to the sceptical Austrian public as an economic bonanza generating revenues of €640 million. But Austria has already spent €130 million upgrading its four host stadia in Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Klagenfurt. Add to that the €890 million Vienna spent on a five-station U-Bahn extension to the stadium and the millions the three other stadia will spend to reduce their stadium capacity after the tournament. After analysing figures from the German World Cup, economists predict the average fan spend of between €150 and €250 a day will boost the Austrian economy by a modest 0.3 per cent.
ACROSS THE BORDER, Swiss authorities are leaving nothing to chance, sending service industry staff - taxi drivers, waiters and the like - to charm school. "A lot of people have asked me lately if it's true that the Swiss are unfriendly and don't know how to laugh," says Dan Wiener, a communications trainer and organiser of a charm school. "We are used to having international visitors but perhaps we are a little too fond of order, too."
Swiss local authorities have run information campaigns urging people living near public viewing areas to join in the party rather than complain to police about late-night revellers. "There's a lot of paranoia that the police will be very strict," said Marc-Olivier Reymond of the Carte Rouge soccer website to the Associated Press. "They say you will not be able to party in the street or make too much noise."
A week before the most under-hyped sporting event in memory, organisers in Switzerland and Austria are quietly, if nervously confident that they will emerge as the real winners of Euro 2008. "Over 3,500 journalists are coming to our country who won't just be writing about football," says Jürg Schmid of Swiss Tourism. "Never before have so many people looked to us as they will during Euro 2008."
