{"id":789777,"date":"2026-07-09T04:39:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T04:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789777\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T04:39:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T04:39:23","slug":"10-takeaways-from-colombia-vs-switzerland-in-vancouver-the-end-of-bc-places-world-cup-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789777\/","title":{"rendered":"10 takeaways from Colombia vs. Switzerland in Vancouver: The end of BC Place&#8217;s World Cup run"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/newsletter.straight.com\/subscribe\/?utm_source=straight&amp;utm_medium=article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The World Cup bid adieu to Canada with the end of the Round of 16 at BC Place on Tuesday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there will still be many events and watch parties happening around town, and Granville Street will remain open to pedestrians. But the marches to the games at BC Place are done, and the grass will be pulled out soon from the stadium, marking the end of the tournament in Vancouver.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a bit of a sad occasion, to be honest, as the world had rave reviews about the way that Vancouver hosted its seven games. Even yesterday, as I was talking to a member of the press from New Zealand who had visited multiple other stadiums on the west coast for the tournament, he repeatedly told me how vibrant and exciting the atmosphere was in Vancouver, something he didn\u2019t see elsewhere to the same degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With that, let\u2019s get on with the last 10 takeaways of the World Cup in Vancouver, as Switzerland beat Colombia 1-0 in penalties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was all yellow<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps some other Coldplay songs could apply to this game as well\u2014\u201dSparks\u201d or \u201cFix You\u201d maybe\u2014but no, other than one section in the upper bowl that was reserved for Swiss fans, the stands at BC Place would have made Colonel Mustard proud. And the Colombia fans in those (pretty awesome) jerseys didn\u2019t let the moment pass them. They were passionate and full of vigour throughout a match that had its challenges, to say the least.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The game on the field was\u2026 tough<\/p>\n<p>Colombia was arguably the most talented squad that BC Place played host to during the World Cup (yes, there\u2019s an argument for Belgium there), but La Tricolor created chances all over the place against a disciplined and structured Swiss team. In particular, Luis Diaz was able to break open the Swiss defence a few times. But between Switzerland keeper Gregor Kobel being fantastic (he was named Man of the Match in an obvious decision) and Colombia repeatedly missing the net on open shots, it just wasn\u2019t to be. Which led to\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The crowd outside was dejected<\/p>\n<p>The yellows turned blue. One could only imagine the absolute insanity that was in store for Vancouver\u2019s downtown if Colombia had won. The dancing, the celebrating, the cheering. It would have been an absolutely epic send-off to Canada\u2019s hosting duties. Instead, we watched a sad sulphur leak slowly eke its way up Georgia Street in hopes of drowning its sorrows somewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If Canada drew\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, there are so, so many \u201cwhat ifs\u201d around the tournament for Canada and Vancouver in particular. What if Vancouver had managed to tie the Swiss?<\/p>\n<p>Well, Les Rouges would have stayed playing in Vancouver. We would have been treated to two more absolutely electric games from the home team. Instead, Vancouverites got a largely impassioned Switzerland-Algeria game, followed by a 0-0 game in which the team nobody wanted to win did.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Imagine Colombia vs. Canada in the Round 16. Sure, ticket prices would have been insane. And it might have even got a little heated. But no matter who won, there would be partying in the streets afterward. What a time we could have had.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some members of the media were overly passionate, to put it charitably<\/p>\n<p>There were media members wearing the merch of both teams, but it just must be said that the Swiss dude who was shouting during the PKs and TWICE loudly banged his desk is a clown. I can live with a little media bias (though admittedly it\u2019s somewhat unsettling to see media wear the colours of one of the team, let alone actual merch). But don\u2019t loudly cheer and bang on stuff. In the words of the (first) immortal Michael Jordan meme: Stop it. Get some help.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We are\u00a0done with the Swiss win song<\/p>\n<p>Not to hate on the Swiss too much, but if I have to listen to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p3l7fgvrEKM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cFreed From Desire\u201d<\/a> one more time (after hearing it constantly during Switzerland\u2019s three wins at BC Place), I\u2019m going to jam something into my ears. It\u2019s not quite at \u201cChelsea Dagger\u201d levels, but it\u2019s close. Gala isn\u2019t even Swiss! Choose some artist who is actually from the country like\u2026 OK I have no suggestions. I guess I am hating on the Swiss.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some of the other music choices were on point<\/p>\n<p>Playing \u201cMacarena\u201d during the Hydration Break was a great call. It got the Colombian fans dancing and jiving and back into the action. Again, it was a 0-0 game. You\u2019ve gotta get the people going somehow.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All roads lead to Tom Cochrane<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve ragged a bit on the World Cup for not taking advantage of halftime shows and getting talented local folks to sing the anthems of countries (a missed opportunity but also maybe it would have been weird to bring someone in to sing Algeria\u2019s anthem that is essentially \u201cFuck the French\u201d), so I was happy to be teased with what was billed as a special halftime show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And it was mostly charming when Tom Cochrane was trotted out to sing \u201cLife Is a Highway\u201d on a small stage with some pyrotechnics going off randomly as Colombian fans sorta danced around and pretended they knew what was happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was good to see some Canucks<\/p>\n<p>Former Canucks goaltender Kirk McLean introduced Cochrane (with Olympian Jon Montgomery), and he was far from the only Canuck in attendance. Current goaltender Thatcher Demko was there, as was former captain Trevor Linden. Those in the know gave each man a good dose of applause when they appeared on screen.<\/p>\n<p>Bidding adieu to BC Place<\/p>\n<p>This is as much a reminder to myself as it is to everyone reading this, but I hope we don\u2019t take <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straight.com\/city-culture\/inside-bc-places-world-cup-glow-up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-trackaction=\"\">BC Place<\/a> for granted after this. It should be home to regular soccer games; that much is obviously clear. And while Whitecaps games aren\u2019t the same for any number of reasons, this World Cup showed off a gem of a stadium, and it put to the forefront the power and the passion that we, the people of Vancouver, possess. Save the \u2018Caps. And do something about it, too. I know I\u2019ll be back through BC Place\u2019s gates. I hope you will too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[76,49,48,8497,569,16291,75,1048,1187,1554,2998,890,341,13117,3560,404,348,55],"class_list":["post-789777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-arts","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city","tag-culture","tag-dining","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-food","tag-lifestyle","tag-music","tag-nightlife","tag-restaurants","tag-shopping","tag-tv","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}