Nordic Football News

Veikkausliiga Transfer Round-up: Experience is the next big thing in Veikkausliiga as Johansson returns to TPS and Kuivasto signs for FC Haka

The NFN transfer news column returns afresh with a new title and ever improved content. Well that’s at least what evil marketing men and women want you to believe with these kinds of blatant attempts at re-branding. In truth, the Round-up will be exactly as inefficient, lazy and crass as the Weekly was in providing [...]

TPS still looking to strengthen the squad

Marco Casagrande, the CEO of TPS, was delighted with the club’s capture of Finland international Jonatan Johansson. He spoke to NFN after Johansson’s introduction to the media, revealing that TPS are still looking for new signings and that a contract extension is in the making for goalkeeper Jukka Lehtovaara.

Johansson pleased with Euro 2012 qualification draw

New TPS signing Jonatan Johansson is content with Sunday’s Euro 2012 draw that placed Finland in qualification group E alongside Sweden, Netherlands, Hungary, Moldova and San Marino.“Netherlands are the favourites”, Johansson stated the obvious. “It is great to play Sweden after a long time. They are going through some changes and are unsure who is [...]

Jonatan Johansson returns to TPS

New TPS signing Jonatan Johansson was introduced to the media via Skype on Monday. Photo courtesy of Jani Mesikämmen.TPS have strengthened their attack significantly by signing the 34-year-old Finnish international Jonatan Johansson on a one-year contract. Johansson returns to TPS after spending 14 years abroad, donning the colours of FC Flora Tallinn, Glasgow Rangers, Charlton [...]

Finland 2 Liechtenstein 1

He wears the number ten shirt, he is the best footballer his country has ever produced, and today at the Olympic Stadium he showed just why he’s so integral to the national side. Yes, AC Siena playmaker Mario Frick finally ended Liechtenstein’s nine-game goal drought with a close range finish in the 13th minute after [...]

Finland 3 Norway 2 Highlights

Wales 0 Finland 2

HBL had a column from Christoffer Herberts this morning, riffing on the idea that Wales and Finland are so similar as to be almost mirror images of each other. They both have a lot of injuries, they’ve both struggled to qualify for a major tournament for over 50 years, they both sruggle with a dominant [...]

Finland’s young guns frighten Germany

Finland were without Jari Litmanen when they took on European Championship runners-up Germany at the Olympic Stadium, but they still managed to put in an excellent performance in Stuart Baxer’s first competitive game in charge, drawing the match 3-3.EGAN RICHARDSONHELSINKI TIMESFINLAND PLAYED without Jari Litmanen and scored three times against the second best team in [...]

Stuart Baxter’s disappointment

Okay, editing the previous post is not really going to work so well, so I will endeavour to produce one of those journalist-writing-about-journalists pieces that do so much to increase the sum of human knowledge. As mentioned before, William Moore’s report is the best place to start. I did something for soccernet, but it is [...]

Baxter’s dress rehearsal: Finland 2 Israel 0

Stuart Baxter said that the Israel game would be a dress rehearsal for the Germany match in September, and he was pretty relieved that it went as well as it did. The high spot was Veli Lampi’s full debut, as the former TPS right back looked solid and put in some excellent crosses including the [...]

Bring in the Owls

Eagle owl (Bubo bubo) is a beautiful bird, and very adaptable. It usually lives in forest and woods, but can obviusly get on in urban environment as well. There are said to be at least five eagle owl couples residing around the centre of Helsinki, and one of them has chosen the Olympic Stadium as [...]

Roy’s boys against Serbia, Belgium

Finland will play Serbia on Saturday and Belgium on next Wednesday, and Hodgson has picked these lads. There’s one player from Veikkausliiga, and he’s a rookie – Hannu Patronen (CD/DM, 1984) of Honka is getting his first taste of national team.[Correction: Sorry, two from Veikkausliiga; Mika Nurmela has become such a mascot for our national [...]