Nordic Football News

NFN were at Ullevaal to follow the final of the Norwegian cup live, read on to find out how that went..

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When it all comes down to it, football is about putting the ball in the back of the net. And as Fredrikstad’s strikers spurned chance after chance, one of their former frontmen produced two neat finishes and sent last season’s runners-up in the Tippeliga crashing into Adeccoliga-obscurity. FFK-manager Tom Nordlie will no doubt have been thrilled to note that the club he left to save Fredrikstad, Kongsvinger, casually climbed their first hirdle with a 3-1 win over Sogndal.

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I went to Estonia last week to see a couple of Baltic League games. The competition is an interesting experiment, aimed at providing a higher level of competition for the top clubs in each league. After the failure of the Royal League, is it time Nordic clubs started looking in a similar direction, as an attempt to bridge the gap between mediocre domestic leagues and European competition? Here’s a short piece I did for the Helsinki Times on the competition:

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They’ve tried so hard and gotten so far, but in the end will it even matter?

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The last couple of rounds of the Tippeliga may have been underwhelming, but the good news is that this Sunday’s cup final between local rivals Molde and Aalesund is guaranteed to be a cracker. And even better, NFN will cover it in our own unmistakable style – with a live-blog to end all live-blogs.

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Very poorly scripted indeed, the endgame of the Tippeliga generated less excitement than the NFN editorial staff at a disco.

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Inter Turku won an enthralling Finnish Cup final at Töölö Football Stadium today, beating their erstwhile bogey team Tampere United 2-1.

TamU had gone ahead through Jonne Hjelm in the 11th minute, after the 21 year old striker picked up Kangaskolkka’s flick-on when Ari Nyman made a mess of his attempted clearance. Hjelm raced onto the loose ball and calmly slotted the ball into the bottom corner, giving goalkeeper David Monsalve little chance.

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Lyn and Bodø/Glimt are leaving together, but still it’s farewell. And maybe they’ll come back to earth, who can tell? To be honest there are quite a few people to blame. They have no ground. Hopefully things won’t ever be the same again. Did that get your attention? Good, because there’s is bugger all else about this round to get excited about, so there’s every chance this last Tippeliga-preview of 2009 will be even dafter than usual..

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A bit over a week has passed since HJK were crowned champions at the Finnair Stadium, a cleansing celebration ending their six year title hiatus. And now that Helsinki has quietened down after being taken over by a seven day long, continuous, pulsating block party (no, seriously, I did see one or two HJK scarves worn proudly on the Saturday night on the town), it’s time to assess the new champions in detail.

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Having promised earlier in the season to take off most of his clothes if Strømsgodset stayed up, Godset manager Ronny Deila came good on his word this Sunday. Tom Nordlie’s Fredrikstad on the other hand face a potentially perilous playoff..

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The end is nigh, and just to make it fair, every game of the last two rounds will be played simultaneously. Wait, wait, that didn’t make sense. In both of the two last rounds every game will be played, oh heck, you get the idea..

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..the nickname that is, not the man. The man isn’t going anywhere, and must be feeling almost as smug as Dag Eilev Fagermo these days as Vålerenga make it four straight wins. Down in the bottom end of things Bodø/Glimt are as good as gone, while Lillestrøm might just snatch peril from the jaws of safety.

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Veikkausliiga final day highlights

In the end, everything went as expected. HJK got the point they needed to secure their 22nd title, despite Jaro taking the lead on eight minutes after Tillman Grove swept the ball home following a cross from the left. HJK’s cautious outlook has been criticised this season, but a draw was all they needed from Jaro and a draw was what they got when Dawda Bah picked up the ball following confusion in the Jaro defence and slotted past Jaro keeper Vitali Teles.

The HJK coach, always a dignified and courteous presence even when under intense pressure, resisted the temptation to take pot shots at the fans and journalists who had spent most of the season discussing who should replace him. Surely he wanted to tell the fans how wrong they were to demand his departure?

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Having carefully ignored the Norwegian part of the international-break due to the thudding tedium of the thing, the preview now reappears to guide you through the altogether more interesting run-in of the Tippeliga..

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Saturday will see the season’s last day of Veikkausliiga football (relegation play-offs not included) before entering six months of meaningless obscurity. HJK, Honka and TPS will decide the fate of the top three positions, while one of JJK and RoPS will get relegated. Down at the bottom, it is less likely that a real battle will take place, given RoPS’ utter ridiculousness. IFK Mariehamn, Haka, FC Inter, Tampere United, VPS, FF Jaro, FC Lahti and KuPS have nothing much to play for, although some of them can be influential in deciding the faith of the top three and relegation spots.

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It was billed as the day Finland’s young players would come of age, and those that played certainly did that. Roni Porokara was a constant threat to Beck on Finland’s left wing, Kasper Hämäläinen linked up on the other wingand was not overawed in front of a crowd 12 times larger than his club’s average gate, while Tim Sparv was admirably robust in his challenges, fouling when necessary and breaking up plenty of German attacks. Jari Litmanen was also magnificent, orchestrating Finnish moves and counter-attacks as well as he did in Finland’s victory over Wales last March.

But the central figure was Jonatan Johansson, who received bouquets from Mickael Ballack and Finnish FA president Pekka Hämäläinen before kick off in recognition of his achievement in starting 100 internationals. Finland took the lead after a precise, rapid counter-attack launched when Litmanen set free Porokara down the left, who raced past the near-stationary Beck before delivering a cross to Roman Eremenko, who knocked it down for Johansson to pick up. The bouquet recipient nipped in between Friedrich and Westermann before poking the ball past Adler and into the German goal, and Finland’s fans and players could not quite believe it.

They began spraying the ball about as if they were a calm, confident modern football team, a preposterous impersonation given their previous cock-ups in this group. At least one move involved more than 20 passes, and it was no surprise when the German fans booed their team off at half time. Was this really Finland, playing possession football, assured at the back and dangerous up front? They didn’t create too many clear cut chances, but they were dominating play and frustrating Germany. Mission accomplished, pretty much – if only it had ended then.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. Baxter swapped Hämäläinen for Kolkka on 66 minutes, and Kuqi for Porokara on 71, and Finland’s fluent counter-attacks all but dried up, as Germany’s attacking onslaught gathered pace. Deprived of the respite offered by an attacking quartet able to keep the ball near the German goal, Finland came under more and more pressure, and eventually conceded a farcical equaliser when Johansson trod on the ball in the six yard box. Klose passed to Podolski, who side footed home and then laughed hysterically for a couple of minutes as his team mates celebrated.

Baxter defended his substitutions in his post-game TV interview.

“We have a lot of players that don’t play at this level, and they tire, like they did in Helsinki, and we had to replace them,” Baxter told the watching thousands.

That Kuqi looked more tired after five minutes on the field than Porokara had after 70 was not pointed out to the coach, neither was the fact that it is much less tiring to keep possession than it is to defend. But to do so would have been overly critical, as Finland performed much better than they have in pretty much any other game this campaign. The coach deserves credit for that, and he was gutted about the result, if not most of the performance.

“I must be one of the most stupid coaches in the world, because I’ve drawn twice with Germany and I’m disappointed,” said the Helsingborg-based Finland manager. “I’m massively disappointed for the players. We could have been one of the few teams to have beaten Germany in a World Cup qualifier on their home pitch.”

Philipp Lahm was not impressed with Finland’s attacking intent, but quite what he expected from them is unclear.

“We always have trouble playing against teams that pack their defence, just as we did against Azerbaijan,” the left back moaned afterwards. “And that was the case today as well. They scored the goal early and then played defensively.”

Lothar Mathäus would never have made excuses like that, but this is all-new, skintight-shirt-wearing, aesthetically pleasing Germany, and victory is less important than a nice spectacle for the fans. Call me old fashioned if you must, but I’m not sure I like it.