The Swiss have a secret weapon! The Alphorn!
Jun 21st, 2010 | By KevB8ll | Category: General Football, Match reports, Matches, Reports By Bazza, World CupHere is Bazza’s latest Telegraph article on the World Cup. First published here.
Well what a right pickle some of the more fancied nations have got themselves into during this World Cup competition so far. The travails of England have caused many a shake of the grey locks, wobble of jowl and gnash of teeth among the pundits, many of whom I note blame Fabio Capello at the first sign of things not quite going according to plan. It’s all his fault, he doesn’t allow the players any freedom, they’re bored, lacking confidence, the formation is wrong, he doesn’t understand the English culture and so on but look around and Spain, Germany and France are not exactly blazing a trail right now are they?
However, what about Switzerland? Whilst I pause to wipe the rather large amount of egg of my face they are sitting a lot better than our lot right now with two games left to play, more points in
the bag having gained an unexpected win against the tournament favourites Spain. They must fancy themselves to overcome Honduras even if they lose to Chile they will probably have six points and a virtual certain entry into the next round.
Who would have thought it?
Well with the host nation looking as if they are going out of the competition and the fading sounds of the vuvuzela during their football lesson at the hands of Diego Forlan’s Uruguay, could we be just about to hear the rise of the haunting Alphorn?
Could this be the missing ingredient from the Swiss master plan? Believe it of not, this eight foot long instrument, which has been used in the Swiss Alps for communication purposes since at least 1400, has been used in a number of classical pieces including works by Leopold Mozart, Rossini and Benjamin Britten so could be relied upon to be a lot more tuneful than the much maligned vuvuzela. After all, like so many things in life; size matters and the sound of several of these huge instruments would certainly add a new dimension to the beautiful game.
As for England we still have the good old traditional sing song and the odd drum and trumpet. Failing that another performance like the one we all witnessed on Friday and we can all play the raspberry!
What’s your obsession with the Swiss? You bore me, sir. I shall not be ready another word that comes from you.
If you follow the links, you’ll see that we are part of the Telegraph blog team. They gave us Switzerland as the team to follow.
I am re-publishing them here, because there will be people who don’t see the original post.
You don’t have to read it you know.
Kev
Yes Mr Thomas, I’m sorry that you didn’t realise that we at J & S had been tasked with provding short reports on Switzerland. I have no particular obsession with them I can assure you and for the Swiss reading this I have nothing against them either. You have to realise that it’s not easy writing about a nation whose football history is not exactly glittering and we are all trying to provide a little entertainment in what has been a disappointing World Cup so far. In fact I would argue that the Swiss have provided the highlight with their excellent win over Spain to raise a bit of interest. As Kev rightly suggests if the pieces on Switzerland bore you, go elsewhere!