Hehe, thank you for opening an English channel... 

Well, let me tell you every thing I know about my club... and lets begin with the historic...

FC St. Gallen has been etablished on 19. April 1879. So we're the oldest existing football club outside the UK ... (There are older clubs like 1860 Munich, but they started with other sports first. for example swimming, etc)...

The club wasnt very succesfull during all the years so we only won two championships (1904, 2000), once the cup (1969) and once the league cup (1978)... The fans of the club are called "Espen" because of the name of the stadium Espenmoos. The club played there for 98 years, from 1910 to 2008! In Juny our new stadium, the commercial AFG Arena, has opened its gates. It has a capacity of 20'000 and is as modern as Alvalade...

The biggest year in the history of FC St. Gallen were the years from 1999-2001, when the team was sensational swiss champion in front of other clubs liker Grasshoppers or Basel. Marcel Koller (hes now coach of the german Bundesliga club Vfl Bochum) formed a new team with unknown players and focussed them on things like teamspirit, etc... so it was a very suprising year and nobody had bet on St. Gallen. The team could commit in the Champions League qualification, where they played against Galatsaray... Well, the failed... after a 1:2 at home, we played a 2:2 draw in turkey... Then the biggest highlight ever came: In the first round of Uefa Cup we've kicked Chelsea London out of the tournament. We lost at Stamford Bridge with 1:0 but we turned score at home (St. Gallen had to play its international games in Zurich beacause of the old Espenmoos) an won 2:0 against stars like Panucci, Zola, Di Matteo... The out in the Uefa cup came in the 2nd round, when we failed in the last minute against Brügge from Belgium...

2001 we were third in the swiss championship (we had the chance to defend the title until the last day in the league) and played international against Pelister Bitola, Steaua Bukarest and failed against the german club SC Freiburg... was a hard game... we won first in Freiburg with 1:0 and lost at home with 1:4...

In 2002 the team appeared in UI-Cup... after eliminating the faroer club Torshavn... we were kicked out in overtime by Willem II from Netherlands... and this was the end of our international period... we came in to trouble in our league for years and had had to fight against relegation till 2008, when we had to go a division deeper... :'(

2006/07 was a good year... the club was leader after 10 rounds played... but in the second half year the played 11 draws... so that we fell back on 5th place of super league, so that we could appear on ui cup 2007/08 again. and this was the beginning of the end: there was a spectacular defeat in the second round against the moldavian club Dacia Chisinau ... and after this we had a catastrophal start into the season (we lost our first 5 games)...

In December 2007 Krassimir Balakov has been presented as our new head couch... but he couldnt help us seriously: till the end of the year we came away from the last place in the classement, but we had to play two relegation games (they are called Barrage in Switzerland) against AC Bellinzona - a club from the south part of the country, where they speak italian. We lost the last game ever in Espenmoos with 2:0, so we had to go one liga deeper into challenge league... Balakov has been fired just after a little more than half a year... We had to notice, that he isnt as good as trainer as he as player was... before he came to St. Gallen made the fans of Grasshoppers the same experiences with him... in Zurich he had changed the hole team and produced 40 (!) transfers in one a half years....

Actually we play the first time since 1993 in challenge league now: We are the biggest club in this division and we've won our first five games without any problems... the fans are very enthusiastic... and we have a average attendance of more than 13 000 !!! We are on our way back... and who knows: may be we're gonna play on an international tournament again!!!

Balakov... how we miss him!! He was one of the finest players that ever played for Sporting. He is still a huge fan of Sporting. He is dearly missed.

PLAYERS:

The most famous player, who played in St. Gallen ist without doubt Ivan Zamorano. He started his career in europe in St. Gallen, in the eastern part of Switzerland...

He scored and scored and scored... 35 goals in a little more than a year... he was the topskorer of the league and famous for his header... We called him "Ivan der Schreckliche" - Ivan, the terrible one...   He changed 1990 to Sevilla... and played also for Real Madrid and Inter Milan... a great guy... this year he came back for a revival match against the profis from today...

An other very good-known guy is Tranquillo Barnetta... He came 2002 in our first team (as a u17 european champion with Switzerland) when he was only 17 years old... He stayed for two years and was also in the national squad for the Euro in Portugal, but he didnt play... After the Euro 2004 he has been transfered to Bayer Leverkusen... hes still there and hes the most important player there and in the swiss national team... he promised us, that he will come back to St. Gallen one day...

Marco Tardelli played also for a season in St. Gallen (1987/88). He was world champion with Italy in 1984...

Other good-known players are Jörg Stiel who was a player of the champions team 2000 and later Bundesliga keeper in Mönchengladbach. He was our national keeper on Euro 2004.

Hakan Yakin played also a season for the Espen... dont have to tell mutch about him.. he changed clubs very often... and scored two goals against Portugal on this Euro...  

Well, there are of course a lot other great players like... Charles Amoah (topskorer in 2000), Ratinho (german champion with Kaiserslautern in 1998), or José Cardozo, on of the best players from Paraguay ever...

At the moment there is on portuguese in our team: Zé Vitor came this winter from Nacional Funchal to us... he scored against Benfica in the last season... i've checked my guia de football...  

FCSG on internet:

If you want to learn more about my favourite club, you should check these homepages:

http://www.fcsg.ch - the offical website.
http://www.fcsg.info - a news site with very good pictures, interviews, and news...
http://www.fcsg.net - a site about the long history of the club
http://www.espenmoos.sg - a homepage about our good-old Espenmoos (we are missing you)
http://www.afgarena.ch - our new stadium...
http://www.green-fires.ch - our best known supporters club (also with much pics, etc)...
http://www.fcsgforum.ch - if you want to check out our forum... 

FCSG in Pictures:

This was the game against Locarno from Saturday... we won 2:1 vs. Locarno... and your seeing our midfielder Adrian Winter wearing our new away-shirt...


Game against Biel from last week in our new stadium... we won 4:0 and had an attendance of more than 14'000 in the 2nd division...


This is our supporter corner in the new Afg Arena...called Espenblock


Our fans - they are just great... and very loyal...


Zé Vitor in our home shirts...



Some fan impressions from saturday in Locarno:

Season 2008/09:


In Challenge League there are 16 teams... so not just the shirts of Sporting and St. Gallen is different...
The dates for the second half of the season will be fixed in winter...

26.07.2008  18:00         FC St. Gallen         FC Concordia BS         2:0              
04.08.2008  20:00        FC Wohlen                    FC St. Gallen        1:3            
09.08.2008  17:30        Yverdon-Sport FC   FC St. Gallen        0:4            
16.08.2008  18:00        FC St. Gallen        FC Biel-Bienne        4:0              
23.08.2008  18:00        FC Locarno         FC St. Gallen        1:2                 
30.08.2008  18:00        FC St. Gallen        FC La Chaux-de-Fonds                       
14.09.2008  16:00        FC Thun                 FC St. Gallen                       
29.09.2008  20:00        FC Schaffhausen        FC St. Gallen                      
04.10.2008  18:00        FC St. Gallen        Stade Nyonnais                          
25.10.2008  18:00        FC St. Gallen        Servette FC                        
02.11.2008  15:30        FC Gossau                FC St. Gallen                          
08.11.2008  18:00        FC St. Gallen        FC Wil 1900                       
16.11.2008  14:30        FC Lausanne-Sport   FC St. Gallen                          
29.11.2008  18:00        FC St. Gallen        FC Lugano                          
07.12.2008  14:30        FC Winterthur         FC St. Gallen         

        

Videos:


FCSG vs. Biel from 16. of August...


Highlights from our old Espemoos stadium


Tranquillo Barnetta as a seventeen years old teenager in St. Gallen.


Some goals from this spring, you can see balakov, too...

14000 spectators in a 2nd division game?! 

In Portugal, some teams in 1st division put only 1000 spectators at the stadium...

Does anybody know if there is any kind of fan organization concerning teams with green and white stripped shirts, such as St. Gallen, Celtic and Sporting?
 

No idea, man...
but it would be very cool: a green-white club for supporters of these club...
we could organise groundhopping to every green-white...nice... but expensive... 

Hey dude, we hope now that we opened the International Lounge where each "outsider" fan can show his interest in Sporting or even let us know everything about your clubs. We also hope that from now on more people can participate in our Forum, maybe when we play against anyone in CL or Uefa Cup or because of interest in Sporting Clube Portugal.

Have a nice stay!


Sorry for my worse english, but i did not talk or even write english for a long time. Need more practice

Ze Vitor is from my island and he is a very good player

Yea, he s just great, a very sympathic person... he speaks english, too - so i have much contact with him cos i'm writing match reports for some local newspapers and the homepage of me and my friends, which is called www.fcsg.info...

Here an interview with Balakov from our page: http://www.fcsg.info/cms/index.php?id=0,871,0,0,1,0
I know its in german, but may be you want to hear his voice... 

Here you can hear some of the songs the fans are singing in the stadium:

http://www.fcsg.info/sounds/ftp/webplayer/fcsgfans.mp3

Hehe, yeah we know this... but St. Gallen is very special. In fact we are one of the biggest clubs in the country and the hole eastern part of Switzerland is standing behind the club...

Vaduz came up to first Division this year... They have an average of 2500 spectators... so you see, Vaduz for St. Gallen was a bad change... and there is on other special thing about FCV... they arent swiss, they are from Liechtenstein! So a club from another country plays in our highest league... and there are some special rules for them: they cant get swiss champion and they dont participate in our cup. The have their own cup tournament in Liechtenstein for getting their ticket to the Uefa Cup Qualification... and there they play against other teams from Liechtenstein, which are playing in the 5. or 6. swiss division...very cheap...

SWISS GEOPRAHPHY:

Well, first lets have a look on the swiss map:



St. Gallen is situated in the east of Switzerland, near the lake of Constance...The town had 75'000 inhabitants this January... the Canton of St. Gallen - this is the smiliar to a district - is one of the biggest five in the country...
Switzerland has little more than 7,5 Million inhabitants... last year lived about 170'000 from Portugal; mostly the live in the western part and are concentrated to Geneva...

To the Football League... so you can search them on the map G means (Swiss)German, F for French and I for Italian.:
Super League: FC Basel (G), BSC Young Boys Bern (G), FC Zürich (G), Grasshoppers Zürich (G), FC Sion (F), FC Luzern (G), Neuchâtel (Neuenburg) Xamax (F), FC Aarau (G), FC Bellinzona (I) and FC Vaduz (G, they are from Liechtenstein and not on the map)...

Challenge League: FC St. Gallen (G), Servette Genf (F), FC Lausanne-Sport (F), FC Schaffhausen (G), FC Thun (G), FC Biel-Biennel (G/F), FC La Chaux-de-Fonds (F), FC Locarno (I), FC Lugano (I), FC Winterthur (G), FC Wohlen (G), FC Wil (G), Stade Nyonnais (F), Yverdon-Sport (F), FC Gossau (G), Concordia Basel (G)...

May be www.stades.ch is an interesting homepage for you! There are pics of all swiss stadiums!!!

I want a St. Gallen scarf...  :'(

 

  Yes...but I want one to my scarf collection...

Try this two links: http://shop.fcsg.ch/abashop?p=home&i=7OpcBjgVVbg5KJlYIeX5&s=37
http://dv1879.ch/shop.htm (they have an Espenmoos scarf, very nice)... May be you can order it from Portugal...

Otherwise you should better come for a game to us... its a nice ground

I Hope you get promoted really fast an hopefully in the future I will be able to come see a game at Your Stadium against Sporting for CL, it would be great!!!
The Stadium looks very beautifull and confortable.