I'm a late entrant to St Petersburg and, with less than two full days here, a fairly brief guest. They say a year isn't enough to see the Hermitage museum, let alone the rest of this grand city, but what little I have seen on a day of tramping around, prompted this question: How on earth did St Petersburg survive 67 years as Leningrad?

This is no disrespect to Lenin, whose entry into the Finland Station here in April 1917 was the start of the October Revolution that would end 300 years of Tsarist...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- At one point, you wondered if they were going to leave. For most of the 90 minutes and stoppage time, the main block of canary-yellow-clad Sweden fans had called out the same name, through Emil Forsberg's goal and goalkeeper Robin Olsen's decisive last-ditch save.

And they continued after the final whistle, through the handshakes and the postgame flash interviews and the waves to friends and family. The name continued to ring out even after the players -- perhaps still...

Switzerland showed a lot of spirit and quality when coming from behind to draw against Brazil and beat Serbia in the group stage, but none of those qualities were evident as they succumbed 1-0 to an average Sweden side almost without a fight in St. Petersburg.

Positives

Hardly any. None of the Swiss stars, apart from the goalkeeper Yann Sommer, put in a decent performance on the night, and fans will be extremely disappointed as the team missed a golden opportunity to reach the quarterfinals.

Negatives

The...