12 Swedish guys and a football match

In February 2011 I was asked to attend the visit of 12 Swedish guys to our company. This visit included a company tour, a few presentations and a local football match. Interestingly the first point on the agenda was the football match which was arranged by a British partner of the Swedish company who as it happens is a big soccer fan. These were my highlights of the evening:

1. How do you recognise 12 Swedish guys at the wine & dine before the match ? - They were wearing scarves in support of the local team they had never heard of - a welcome gift by the British partner.
2. At some point of the game the players started to push each other around and for a moment it seemed as if a fight was going to start but then everyone suddenly calmed down. So far that has been my only chance of witnessing true famous British Hooliganism but the chance faded almost as soon as it came. Maybe next time.
3. A true soccer fan would know how to recognise a player on the field: by his number. My female colleague and myself however were rather less soccer-savvy and kept to: the blue player with the cool haircut, the guy with the red shoes, the small one who looks slightly condensed, the bully, the pretty guy with nice shoulders, the slow one, the one on the left / the one on the right. At some point our supportive British partner turned around and shouted 'the guy with the red shoes is called Jack!'. And yet female logic pointed out: There are 2 players called Jack but only one with red shoes...
4. The team we supported (or rather: had to support) had more than 300 supporters in the stadium whereas the other team had less than 40. The supporters of our team used very creative language which made our guests ask several inconvenient questions about the English language.

I believe all in all our Swedish guests had a great time assessing and appreciating British football tradition. If not, it must have been due to cultural misunderstanding. After all we do not understand everything that is going on in Swedish soccer - have a look at this Youtube video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qq35TGd-AM showing Swedish goal happiness:

Soccer-savvy or soccer-naive - I am sure I am not the only one who looks at this video with a good portion of amused cluelessness.