Germany 2006

To most, it's probably not necessary to point out that Kenya didn't qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Though the coming tournament gives us one of the more surprsing African groups, Kenya still didn't manage to sneak through. "Surprises" Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo and Ghana will be the ones representing our continent. They will be joined by not so surprising Tunisia. The regulars Cameroon, Nigeria and Egypt all failed to qualify.

Other than all the African teams, Switzerland come closest to taking Kenya's place in the field for me. The Swiss team played really well through out the whole qualification period and were unbeaten since losing to France in their final game of the group stage of the Euro 2004. They had managed to lead their qualification group for most of the time and draw with teams such as France and Ireland. Unfortunately they weren't able to score the "big points" and ended up having to go into the playoffs (France qualified directly).

In the playoffs they were pitted against Turkey. No easy task; Turkey were after all silver medalists at the last World Cup. The home game on Saturday was one of the best I can remember from the Swiss team. They won 2:0, which is quite a safe result for the return leg.

Well, that's unless you are going to be playing in Istanbul with over 50'000 fans against you. When the Swiss team arrived in Istanbul on Monday, they were harassed and had to wait for 2.5 hours till they had passed passport control and received their luggage (the Turks had to wait no more than 20 minutes on their arrival in Geneva). In addition to that, the reception by the fans at the airport and on the way to the airport wasn't exactly warm. To be fair; some stupid fans were booing during the Turkish national anthem on Saturday.

The game started with a bang when the Swiss were awarded and converted a penalty in just the 2nd minute of play. That meant Turkey needed to score four goals to qualify. They went on to score the next three goals to lead 3:1 shortly after half-time. At that point, I was almost giving up. That was until the Swiss got one back in the 84th. That's cool, they're through now, I thought. Not so fast! Turkey scored their fourth of the game. But luckily no more after that, meaning that the Swiss were through.

The funniest part of the game happened after the game was over; all Swiss players quickly ran back into the locker room without even celebrating. And they were followed by the players from Turkey. Obviously, both teams were afraid of being attacked by the fans. The Swiss may also have been afraid of their opponents. Early unconfirmed reports say that some Turkish players attacked and even injured some members of the Swiss delegation.

For me it's now back to the Champions League. On Tuesday I'm going to watch Thun play their final home game against Arsenal. I really hope Thierry Henry is going to play, at least for about 60 minutes. I know they're already qualified and he needs rest, but still...