Nordic Football News

Hodgson to Inter

From HS: The Finnish Football Association has reported on its website that the head coach of the Finnish national team Roy Hodgson will not be extending his contract, which runs out today. This means Hodgson will not be guiding Finland into the World Cup qualifying matches next autumn. The Finnish FA had hoped to secure [...]

Finland draw Azerbaijan again

Let’s hope they don’t mess that one up, because the rest of the draw for World Cup 2010 Qualifying looks difficult: Germany, Russia, Finland, Wales, Azerbaijan, Liechtenstein Wales are quite poor but can’t be as bad again as they were this time (and their under-21s had a hell of a result against France recently). It [...]

Helsinki Times: The dream ends here

Here’s William Moore’s take on Finland’s failure to qualify, and here is my Helsinki Times piece: It was always going to be a long shot. Finland needed to win in Porto, while Serbia got less than maximum points in their two remaining matches against Kazakhstan and an already-qualified Poland. So it proved, as Roy Hodgson’s [...]

Hodgson hungry for Finnish drama

So says Uefa.com. Having been to see Teuvo Tulio’s The Cross of Love last night, I’m not nearly as ravenous as Croydon Roy. A little peckish, perhaps, but qualification for the European Championships would be a very unFinnish drama, and if Tulio’s work is anything to go by, all the better for that. Roy says [...]

Come on Poland!

I think we can all agree that, after the weekend’s events, the priority is to ensure that Serbia don’t qualify. They play very dull, defensive football at every tournament they go to, whereas Finland have not yet had the opportunity to play dull, defensive football at a major tournament. Portugal will be the most likely [...]

Finland-Azerbaijan post-match celebrations

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Up_nFLLetw&rel=1]

Do you trust a Serbian snow plough?

Apparently, they can’t clear snow in Belgrade. The Spanish referee decided that Javier Clemente’s team will play today, if it’s possible, and if it isn’t possible ‘for reasons beyond control’, it will be played next Saturday. If they do get to play next Saturday, they will be at a huge advantage – knowing exactly what [...]

Finland-Azerbaijan picture special!

Finland 2 Azerbaijan 1

Shefki Kuqi saves the day! A fantastic finish from the big man, glanced in off his nose after a goalmouth scramble. The most hilarious thing about the goal was seeing all the Azeri players surrounding the referee and pointing to the big screen attempting to get the referee to disallow it because their keeper had [...]

Cold as ice for Finland v Azerbaijan

It’s very cold here at the moment, about -7 in Tampere with sporadic snow showers. It looks very beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to play football in it. Saturday’s weather looks pretty cold too, so let’s hope the Azerbaijanis don’t like it. I have no idea really, I’m guessing it’s fairly mild outside of the [...]

Eremenko attacked by Spartak fans?

A story in Helsingin Sanomat today: Alexei Eremenko Jr., a forward on the Finnish national football team, suffered a jaw fracture on Sunday evening in a confrontation on a Moscow street. He is scheduled for surgery on Wednesday, and he will not play in the remaining Euro 2008 qualifiers, which end next week. Eremenko and [...]

Egan moans about Finnair stadium

I haven’t said anything about Finnair stadium before, although I think I’ve made it pretty clear which is my favourite Finnish football ground. The Töölö stadium has not really been on my radar, despite visits for the Armenia match and the HJK-TamU title decider in 2006. It’s just there, a nice enough place but not [...]

Alexei Eremenko Jr beaten up, misses qualifiers

Not much to add to the title really. SPL sources don’t know much more than that he was ‘battered’, and he’s unavailable for the games against Azerbaijan and Portugal. Get well soon Alexei, you have provided rich material for us at FiF and have been the most consistently productive striker in the Finland squad recently. [...]

Tampere United win the cup

That about covers it. On penalties, very small crowd, no broadband for journalists, and played in a crappy stadium. Considering Finnair Stadium’s raison d’etre is to provide somewhere for the big domestic games and unnatractive national team matches, the majority of both being played at the end of the season, it has some astonishing design [...]

RoPs win the playoff

RoPs kept two clean sheets and won the promotion playoff at pallokenttä tonight. Not sure why they couldn’t play in Vuosaari, they moved the game at the weekend when there was snow but now there is none and the temperature is above freezing. Even if there was a white out, that’s what orange balls are [...]

Lauri Dalla Valle

According to the Times. This was news to me, as the last I heard Chelsea had offered €1.5m for him and his dad was keen for him to play in (and for) Italy. He’s only just started playing with JIPPO’s senior squad, and it’d be nice for him to get a chance to play a [...]