Today marks the 25th anniversary of the opening of St. Jakob-Park, the home of FC Basel. It was the first stadium designed by the Basel-based architects Herzog & de Meuron, who later designed the Allianz Arena in Munich (the home of FC Bayern Munich) and the Bird's Nest, the Beijing National Stadium, for the 2008 Summer Olympics. While I did not attend that opening event (a football match between FC Basel and FC Lausanne-Sport), I was at the first Swiss men's national football team match there on 6 June 2001, a 0-1 loss to Slovenia. Since then, I've seen many FC Basel and Swiss national team men's and women's matches there. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 15 March 2026)