Basel II

Ground: Stadion Rankhof

Visits: 1

Date: 9th August 2014

Match: Basel II - YF Juventus 3-0 (1. Liga Promotion)

Attendance: 150

I wanted to make one more trip abroad before my summer holidays came to an end. At first I looked at doing 5-6 matches in Germany but since I couldn´t find a good "route" I looked elsewhere. In the end I decided for a weekend in Switzerland. Having been to only three grounds I had plenty of options. My main match was to be the match between FC Basel and FC Zürich on Saturday evening. Earlier in the day it was possible to visit Basel II vs YF Juventus in 1. Liga promotion (level 3). My journey to Switzerland started with a bang. As my Swiss flight was loading bags in Copenhagen a door was hit and the captain informed us the door had to be inspected. Worst case scenario was the door was damaged and Swiss needed to fly up a new plane from Zürich to Copenhagen. The door was ok though and 50 minutes delayed we could leave Copenhagen. This was probably the first time I was pleased to have a 50-minute delay to my flight, it could have been many hours. Anyway, shortly after 5pm I arrived in Zürich airport from where I boarded a train taking me to Basel, my base for the first part of this trip.

Basel II vs YF Juventus was played at Stadion Rankhof. It has a capacity of 7 600 (1 000 seats). The record attendance of the original stadium was about 30 000 spectators. The Stadium was rebuilt between 1993 and 1995 and is nowadays the home of Basel U-21 (Basel II) and Concordia Basel. Since kick-off was at 3pm I had some time for sightseeing in Basel. My first stop was St. Jakob Park, the venue for tonight´s big game, but there wasn´t much to see to be honest. I took the #14 tram back to the city centre and left at Marktplatz. With the might Rhein river floating through Basel there were plenty of nice views of the city. The city of Basel has a population of almost 200 000 and is located where the Swiss, French and German border meet. After a light lunch (Wurst salad) I was then at Stadion Rankhof shortly after 2pm. Entrance was free and I was a bit curious to find out what the attendance would be like. In total around 150 were at Stadion Rankhof this afternoon. One of those present was St. Pauli fan Jürgen. We met in Kristianstad last year and chatted for most of the 90 minutes at Stadion Rankhof. On the pitch it was 0-0 at half-time. In the second half Basel II were by far the better team and scored three goals. YF Juventus, from Zürich, is a club with Italian roots. It was founded in 1992 following a merger between Young Fellows Zürich (established in 1903) and Società Calcistica Italiana Juventus Zurigo (1922). The match finished 3-0 to Basel II and after the match I went via bus and tram back to my hotel for a short rest. Knowing FC Basel vs FC Zürich would be a match with a great atmosphere I then left my hotel with high expectations.

Sightseeing pictures from Basel:

marktplatz