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Swiss priming themselves

AFP, Geneva
A giant helium-inflated football some 15 metres (49 feet) in diameter was hoisted over Geneva's iconic "Jetd'Eau" fountain last week, but aside from that, a new row of UEFA flags in front of the central station and an electronic countdown clock in a nearby shopping street, there are few signs the city will be host to one of Europe's key sports championships in just a few weeks.
Geneva will host games by the Czech Republic, Turkey and Portugal, with the two latter teams playing the second game of the tournament at 1845 GMT on June 7.
The city is home to large Portuguese and Turkish immigrant populations and the organisers hope this high-profile game will get the competition off to a lively start.
Switzerland's capital Bern is another host city which will welcome teams and fans from the Netherlands, France and Italy for the competition.
The Bernese are notorious throughout Switzerland for their alleged slowness in speech and manner but will have to pick up the pace in the coming month to finish
off an extensive programme of roadworks and transport projects in the city centre, including a new tram interchange.
But the organisers remain upbeat that the tournament will be a sporting and popular success.
"The tournament will really capture the popular mood when the teams arrive," UEFA president Michel Platini told journalists in Geneva earlier this week.
The teams are due to arrive in Switzerland and co-host Austria on June 2.
"Then it'll be a real frenzy. It was just the same in France before the 1984 European Championships and theWorldCupin 1998," Platini said.
It is certainly a massive undertaking for the Swiss authorities, with police drafted in from neighbouring France and Germany and even further afield like the Czech Republic.
In total, more than 2,500 foreign officers will help their Austrian and Swiss counterparts police the competition.
Germany alone will supply 1,700 officers, the largest single contingent, to be divided between tiie two countries.
France will send 750 officers to back up the Swiss police; Croatia will provide 31 officers; Poland 25 and Sweden 15 officers; Greece 12 and Russia and Spain 11 each.
Swiss telecoms company Swisscom also has its work cut out to ensure that the telecommunications infrastructure is all in place to sustain such a huge sporting and media event.
Over the next few weeks, the company will install 13 telecoms networks to serve the four Euro 2008 stadiums -- Geneva, Bern, Basel and Zurich -- as well as other key sites such as UEFA's central headquarters, fan zones, hotels, airports and stations to ensure adequate bandwidth.
"This is three to six times more than what a major international company would need," said Swisscom director UrsSchaeppi.
"In the stadiums, we're going to effectively install small telecoms factories,” he said, estimating the cost at around at least 7 million Swiss francs (4.3 million euros)
Switzerland last hosted a major football tournament more than half a century ago with the 1954 World Cup.
That event became known as the "Miracle of Bem" after West Germany defied all odds to triumph in the final, setting the stage for that country's post-war football renaissance.
The organisers of Euro 2008 must be hoping that some of that old magic rubs off a second time around.