Yes, indeed. Our favorite pub so far is the Oliver Twist and it serves the dual purpose of being the main English speaking bar in Zurich and also as the hub of everything soccer. It is only a 10 minute walk from our place. On most weeknights it is just a casual pub where you can get a pint of Guiness and have a good time talking to Welsh dudes who hate Zurich. On nights when English soccer is being played it is a room filled with nothing but British dudes screaming at the top of their lungs. Awesome. I check soccernet.com on a regular basis now to see what big matches are coming up.
Tonight I chose to head down there for a Champions League match between Chelsea and Barcelona. If you don’t know, the Champions League is THE league for bragging rights in Europe. All of the teams involved in the league play for their respective countries, but this is the tournament to crown the best team in all of Europe. I think every UK soccer fan in Zurich was down there for the important game against the Spanish based Barcelona club. I don’t know if the Brits generally outnumber the Spanish in Zurich or if the lopsided cheering was simply because of the pub itself. What would a Spanish bar be anyway? I was silently pulling for Barca because I don’t have any geographic loyalties and the team I played for in Seattle was named after them (Barcaloungers was our historical name). It was a great game and London based Chelsea pulled out the 4-2 victory after a wild opening 20 minutes where they went up 3-0. They needed a two point victory to advance to the quarter finals so it was a nail biter to the end.
Ironically, the one guy I decided to strike up a conversation with was actually an American football fan who once played tackle for the London Monarchs in the World League. He was more interested in talking about the Super Bowl than of soccer. Small world.
