World Cup musings - Swiss illustrate perfect timing as Zurich awakes from its slumber

As we waited for this World Cup to come alive, little did we expect a Manchester City reject to provide the fillip this tournament was in desperate need of, scoring the winning goal in Switzerland's 1-0 win over Spain.

A similarly profound effect was had on the city of Zurich, Switzerland's largest city. The Swiss, not known for their wild partying antics (when FC Zurich beat AC Milan in last season's Champions League a polite ripple of applause could be heard throughout Zurich), took to the streets to 'party'.

When Swiss people go crazy it generally constitutes a second piece of chocolate or a little less lemonade in their panache (shandy).

However, Wednesday's result in Durban created something on a much grander scale. Langstrasse, a street famous for lap dancing joints and home to some of Zurich's dodgiest bars, was closed for several hours as people drank copious amounts of alcohol, waved the national flag and danced on the rooftops of cars.

Zurich hasn't seen this kind of commotion since Tina Turner opened a bank account here.

Now, to say the Swiss were going crazy on the aforementioned street might be being a bit flexible with the truth as, admittedly, most who were seen hooting horns (not the first time someone got the horn on this street, eh?!), drinking beer and waving the flags ferociously, were either Turkish or Latin American. However, this was punctuated with the odd smiley Swiss face, often painted in the national colours of red and white.

Even the local media got caught up in the excitement of it all. The Blick described the result as 'The miracle of Durban' and the nation was in a state of 'Jubilation', which has to be a first.

The reaction was as if they had actually won the whole damn thing but that is understandable as the locals know this could be as near as they ever get to doing just that.