One of the many loveable idiosyncrasies of Finnish football is the relaxed attitude to registrations taken by the authorities here. Players can switch clubs with bewildering regularity, via an intricate network of co-operation agreements between clubs at all levels of the game. Promising young defender Johannes Mononen has played for all three of Tampere’s top [...]
Continue reading...30. June 2010
TPS will host Welsh side Port Talbot Town in their opening fixture of the UEFA Europa League first qualification round tie. Having recently played four games in nine days, TPS are having injury problems. In Wednesday’s pre-game press conference, head coach Marko Rajamäki revealed five players are ruled out of Thursday’s game.
Continue reading...4. June 2010
The Finnish league has made it all the way to the 8th round, which makes us here at the NFN Ivory Tower quite ready and willing to single out some teams for harsh criticism. We could also carve out the positives out of some teams’ performances, but who wants to read good news anyway?
Continue reading...3. June 2010
The HJK that many have been waiting for finally showed up in the Finnish Cup victory over Honka last week. For once HJK had certainly done their tactical homework. During the defeat in Espoo three weeks ago, they could neither contain Honka’s flowing passing game nor find the keys to unlock the stubborn Honka defence. [...]
Continue reading...23. May 2010
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this football season. Pub Harald have expanded their beer-selling operations from Ilves to TPV matches, ensuring that pretty much every game taking place at Tammela can now be enjoyed with alcoholic enhancement. And Finnish football, much as I love it, does often need alcoholic enhancement.
Continue reading...3. May 2010
We owe you a sincere apology for our erratic previewing of the weekend’s Veikkausliiga round. Our dear friend Egan Richardson is writhing in the misery that confronted his dear hometown of Sheffield, and I have spent my time trying to understand the annual Finnish holiday called Vappu (on May 1st and, in its most liquefied [...]
Continue reading...27. April 2010
Janne Oivio attempts to make sense of Tampere United’s future while in a drug-induced haze.
Continue reading...25. April 2010
Soccernet recently asked me to write something about Finland’s new TV deal, specifically in relation to the bonuses for fielding fewer foreigners and the potential implications if this were applied in different leagues, but I haven’t yet gotten around to it. Partly because I just started a new job and am pretty busy at the [...]
Continue reading...21. April 2010
Markus Kitunen takes a look at HJK’s prospects for 2010. By all accounts HJK are by far the biggest favourite to win the Veikkausliiga title in 2010. Honka and Inter obviously fancy their chances but while the former have weakened and the latter are still regrouping after a disappointing season, HJK have come out stronger [...]
Continue reading...20. April 2010
Janne Oivio continues his skewed coverage of Veikkausliiga following the preview package published last week. It’s ridiculously early to do a power ranking, but I don’t care. Having just completed NFN’s Massive Veikkausliiga Preview I was so delighted with myself that I decided to begin a running feature which will run hopefully every other week.
Continue reading...19. April 2010
I am kicking off my Veikkausliiga season in Turku tonight, and will continue our cherished tradition of live blogs. I’m blogging live on our Facebook profile this time, as the NFN website is somewhat lacking in capacity when it comes to handling a lot of traffic. The game kicks off at 20:30 PM Finnish time. [...]
Continue reading...17. April 2010
Calling the champion is tougher than usual. HJK were clear favorites last year and duly took what they should have. This year is different, though. Honka is right in the mix.
Continue reading...16. April 2010
If you missed Part One featuring the relegation candidates, click here. Mid table mania strikes! The ho-hum of the league promises to be quite intriguing thanks to Jaro going ballistic with new, exciting faces, MyPa finding an interesting bone in its body and Tampere United just being Tampere United.
Continue reading...15. April 2010
Since there is no hope for compromise amongst NFN Finnish’s “experts” and Veikkaaja decided not to listen to my infinite wisdom, I’ve decided to use this space to tell everyone how the upcoming Veikkausliiga season will play out. So listen up.
Continue reading...15. April 2010
In the run-up to my Massive Season Preview 2010 (to be published very, very soon), I thought I’d start off with the conventional random predictions and pre-emptive awards for the upcoming season.
Continue reading...1. April 2010
Veikkausliiga kicks off in a couple of weeks. While most clubs have done their best not to attract much interest during the wintertime, they will now make their presence known at the Veikkausliiga media day, which will be held next Thursday.
Continue reading...
1. August 2010
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