How Servette filled his court in (twenty years and) 48 hours

Marissa is 16 and has half a dozen boys sighing as they wait for the “old man” to finish asking her questions. She does not mind suitors or questions. A young girl from rural Geneva who stops riding horses to practice soccer, that’s conceivable, but she’s got a subscription to Servette’s North Wing, that’s what it calls out… “Servette, she’s classy,” Marissa replies in the tone of evidence.

These days, in Geneva, her annual subscription has made her a distinguished person. On Tuesday evening he will be allowed to attend the second leg of the Champions League third qualifying round between Servette and Glasgow Rangers (legged 1-2), with everyone in town looking for tickets, a friend with tickets, or a ruse for an invite. The match was included in the subscription, as was the subscription for the previous round against Genk, which had already attracted 18,000 spectators in mid-July. There, the Geneva stadium filled up in 48 hours. Servette would be sold out in La Praille for the first time since the opening match on March 16, 2003, as the Genevans had mainly come to watch their new stadium.