Europop 2008: BARAN SENDS SWISS CUCKOO
The final sampled whistle has been blown and the record crowd is streaming out of the stadium digesting this extraordinary result: Switzerland have won Europop 2008. The game was an incident packed one, thanks in part to 15 extra Italian votes flooding in after a football website (presumably an Italian one!) linked to us. It looked like hard cheese for Switzerland but their overwhemling support among registered users has made the difference, and manager Pete Baran can proudly hold Europop’s trophy aloft, or he could if it existed. As for Italy, they played some amazing games through this tournament but, like Germany and Portugal before them you can’t help but feel they underestimated the Swiss will to win. Congratulations to both managers for getting to the final and watch this space for news of future pop orgafun.
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Matt DC on July 1st, 2008
The Italian team are slumped to the turf, their heads in their hands. A couple of them are in tears. They gave everything to win some very challenging games earlier in the tournament and maybe this was a match too far for them. Certainly I thought this was the weakest we’ve played this tournament but I thought that of the Swiss too but they clearly had more in the tank. Congratulations to the Swiss, they richly deserved it.
Pete on July 1st, 2008
Well done Matt, and I cannot think of a better team to meet in the final. And I respect a team who never went for the easy option and fired out a number of volleys in Italian (wheras you’ll note that after my first track, I eschewed the large number of home languages).
The Swiss are proud to be hosts and winners of this tournament, even if it came as a bit of a shock. And in my first competition I have to say I am overwhelmed by all the support I have been given (especially in the office).
But most of all I want to thank the Swiss for having a surprising amount of interesting music. In particular the two websites
http://www.swisscharts.com (the swiss top 100 site, very useful to see what’s going down) and
http://www.mx3.ch - a pretty encyclopedic swiss pop-site. I couldn’t have done it without them.
Roll on the World Cup.
FT's koganbot on July 1st, 2008
Congratulations to the Swiss. Began with an impressive romp over a disorganized Czech side, but who thought they’d continue on with victory after victory?
Favorite Swiss track: Yves Larock “Zookey.”
Favorite Italian track: Matia Bazar “Ti Sento.”
Favorite tracks of the elimination rounds: Najoua Belyzel “Gabriel,” Expander & Thinkfreak “Trackum”
FT's Martin Skidmore on July 1st, 2008
And the Swiss trophy cabinet is, at least symbolically, no longer barren. (Do you see?)
Greg on July 1st, 2008
A great tournament, and congratulations to Pete!
jeff w on July 2nd, 2008
I arrived late at the tournament, but enjoyed the knockout stage. Congrats to Pete, and commiserations to Matt whose team consistently surprised me.
Andrew Farrell on July 2nd, 2008
Well done Pete! I completely failed to find much joy in the Swiss in the Pop World Cup, crashing out in the first round. I noticed the same thing happening with my charge this year, and after being beaten by said Swiss in the first game, defaulted on my managership, convinced that no-one could ever do very well with the Czechs. Who, er, turned out to have previously won said PWC. I think the lesson “learned” is that I couldn’t find a pop tune if my life depended on it…