A year ago, TamU were getting a good seeing to at the hands of Norwegian giants Rosenborg in the Champions League Third Qualifying Round. The Trondheim club have a budget roughly 10 times bigger than TamU, so it was no surprise that Rosenborg ran out easy winners. No shame for a Finnish club in losing to a Norwegian one.
Well, Honka just did Viking in Stavanger to go through to the First Round of the UEFA Cup, which is a frankly astonishing result. The same budgetary problems apply, and remember that Honka have sold three of their better players to Swedish clubs for biggish money in the last year.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Oh the shame..
August 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Only once has this happened before, in 1964/65 when Haka beat Skeid Oslo (whoever the fuck they are) in the Cup Winner’s Cup. The other six times Finnish clubs have met Norwegian ones in European competitions, the whale-killers have won.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Skeid are actually playing in the third tier now, so this doesn’t bode well for Viking.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Incredible result, especially given last year’s Norway – Finland clash. Then again, Viking are having an absolute rank season, so not a complete shock. Well done Honka.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
It’s all going wrong for Viking at the moment. At the weekend they threw away two points through a horrible goalkeeping-error in the 90th minute, and had a player sent off for randomly kicking an opponent..
Norwegian teams do have a proud tradition of embarrassing themselves in the UEFA-cup though, Lillestrøm were eliminated by some part-timers from Luxembourg a few seasons ago..