World Highest Stadium

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EURO 2008™ - the ultimate high

All-star Austria and Switzerland teams have played a special game 3,545 metres up in the Alps to celebrate a year to go until UEFA EURO 2008™.

Famous names
The five-a-side match, played on a 30x15m artificial pitch perched on top of the glacier at the Jungfraujoch - the so-called 'Top of Europe' - featured current internationals David Degen, Johan Djourou, Christian Fuchs, Zlatko Junuzovic and Jerzy Dudek as well as famous faces from the recent past like Michael Laudrup, Sergei Aleinikov, John Jensen, Dariusz Dziekanowski, Otto Konrad and Paulo Sousa.

Thin air
The Swiss team, with all players wearing No20, was captained by 103-times capped international and UEFA EURO 2008™ ambassador Stéphane Chapuisat who led by example with two goals. Fellow ambassador Andreas Herzog - also capped 103 times - led the Austrian team, who all wore the number 08. The mountains made a dramatic backdrop for the game, but the thin air soon took its toll on even the fittest stars.

Coaches playful
The final score after five minutes each way was 5-5. With a smile, Switzerland coach Jakob Kuhn said: "The good thing for both coaches is that we will both remain unbeaten at this height above sea level." His Austria counterpart Joseph Hickersberger countered: "My team dominated this match but unfortunately we could not train yesterday and in the second five minutes we paid the price."

Special guests
UEFA Executive Committee member Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, UEFA General Secretary David Taylor, Swiss Football Association president Ralph Zloczower and his Austrian counterpart Friedrich Stickler were among the 400 special guests invited to attend the match and watched Swiss referee Urs Meier take charge of proceedings.

Train journey
Having taken the UEFA EURO 2008™ train from Lauterbrunnen to the highest railway station in Europe at the Jungfraujoch, the guests and players were served drinks from glasses carved from ice under the shadow of an ice football, ten metres in diameter. Great care had been taken in the days preceding the game to keep the ice ball intact, with the glacier well known for its unpredictable conditions.

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Euro 2008 organisers turn blind eye and celebrate on high


JUNGFRAUJOCH, Switzerland, June 8 (Reuters) - Organisers of next year's European soccer championships turned a blind eye to FIFA's new altitude regulations on Friday as they marked the one year countdown to Euro 2008.
Two teams of past and present international players staged a 10-minute friendly match on an artificial pitch laid out on a glacier perched beneath Switzerland's 4,158-metre high Jungfrau peak.
Switzerland and Austria are set to co-host the 2008 tournament which will kick off in the Swiss city of Basel on June 7.
"We got the idea for the game on the glacier after watching television pictures of Roger Federer's exhibition tennis match against Andre Agassi on top of Dubai's biggest hotel and thinking what we could do to make something similar," Euro 2008 chief operating officer Martin Kallen told Reuters on Friday.
"It's perfect because Switzerland and Austria are well known for their mountain scenery. And I'm sure FIFA won't mind as we only played for five minutes each half!"
Last month, world soccer's governing body announced an immediate ban on international games played more than 2,500 metres above sea level, arguing that high altitude matches could damage players' health and give an unfair advantage to the home side.
The ban has drawn fierce criticism from a handful of mountainous South American countries led by Bolivia, but the players involved in Friday's match seemed to share FIFA's stance.
"It was pretty hard to breathe and I'm glad we don't have to play up here every week," Arsenal and Switzerland defender Johan Djourou told Reuters after the game, which ended in a somewhat stage-managed 5-5 draw.
"You get pretty dizzy if you make too many quick turns," agreed former Denmark midfielder Michael Laudrup. "If it had been a 90-minute match I'm not sure what would have happened."
Tournament organisers said they were well on track to host the 2008 event with Kallen telling Reuters on Thursday that his team were ahead of previous championships at the same stage.
Four of the eight stadiums, in Vienna, Bern, Basel and Geneva, are already complete or in need of only minor modifications, while the remaining four, in Zurich, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Klagenfurt, are due to be finished by September.

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