“Like in the library”
Swiss World Cup test match in front of 30,000 empty seats
June 7, 2026 – 7:09 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Switzerland botches its World Cup dress rehearsal against Australia. But really a lot of fans don’t see that in the USA.
Switzerland ruined their World Cup dress rehearsal with a 1-1 draw against Australia on Saturday evening. “It was a test match, but it will be difficult like that. You can’t act like that, otherwise you’ll go home after three games,” captain Granit Xhaka sounded the alarm in an interview with SRF. In addition to the poor performance, the small crowd in the San Diego stadium was also an issue.
Only 6,100 fans watched the game at local lunchtime in the Californian city with over a million inhabitants. This left almost 30,000 empty seats in the “Snapdragon Stadium”. Swiss reporters on site reported an atmosphere like “in a library”. The communication between the players on the field was very easy to understand in the stands.
“I expect a much better mood”
However, the Swiss national players only had a limited influence on the sparsely populated ranks. “I’m less interested in that. It may be that the stadiums will be a little less full, but I still expect a much better atmosphere than today,” said Silvan Widmer from Mainz 05, according to “20 Minuten”, also with a view to the World Cup finals. For goalscorer Dan Ndoye, the issue was also only “secondary”.
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That’s why Xhaka was already looking towards the opening game next Saturday. “We now have another week to work on ourselves, then we will be ready. We need 100 percent commitment for that.”
At the “Levi’s Stadium” in Santa Clara, the “Confederates” will meet Qatar in Group B (from 9 p.m. in the live ticker on t-online). There will not only be 6,000 fans in the stadium, which has a capacity of almost 70,000 spectators.