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 staying and who isn’t, so I think we have a good chance against them. The same applies to Hungary. The way I see it, we can claim the second spot in the group”, the striker predicts.

The Finnish league is not always considered the best place to impress the national team coach, but being in national team coach Stuart Baxter’s books was one of the primary reasons behind Johansson’s decision.

“If you look at the past year or two, I have struggled on club level. I want to be able to play on a high level and to do so I need more games”, says Johansson, who has spent some time unemployed.

“I really want to play for the national team, and getting a regular game is vital in that sense. I want to be a useful player for the national team as well as TPS”, Johansson proclaims.

As a national team veteran returning to Veikkausliiga, Johansson was quickly asked about Jari Litmanen, his friend who is still unsure whether to keep playing or not. It seems Finland’s greatest footballer of all time is warming up to the idea of playing another season, judging by his appearances for FC Lahti in a recent tournament. Johansson hopes that Litmanen will still be a part of the national team.

“It is something that he has to decide for himself, but I truly hope he will play in the Finnish league as well as for Finland. Jari was one of the persons I consulted before I decided to move to TPS”, Johansson said.

See also:

Jonatan Johansson returns toTPS
TPS still looking to strengthen the squad

Finnish football journalist Janne Oivio makes his NFN debut with an appeal for Finland to heal the scars caused by a previous close shave in qualifying, after the Euro2012 draw pitted Finland against a former nemesis.

I don’t care about qualifying for Euro 2012. Just destroy Hungary.

I’ll never forget October 11th, 1997. For the first time ever, Finland’s national football team had really and truly sucked me in to their travails on the road to World Cup 98. Oh, I’d watched them plenty in the past. But years of sad-sack performances left little room for hope, so it was just about watching a game of football.

Now it was different. Thanks to a favourable group and a string of nice results, Finland could squeeze into the playoff stage with a win over Hungary.

I remember desperately wanting to go to the Olympic Stadium to see the match, but my grandparents’ silver anniversary prevented any such hope. Thus, I was stuck on Finnjet on the way to Tallinn, watching the game on a television set in the ships lounge.

I remember Sumiala’s go-ahead goal. But more than anything, I remember the Clown College Memorial goalmouth scramble that sent Finland crashing out. Touched last by five Finnish players following a Hungary corner, the ball trickled into the back of the net with a despairing Teuvo Moilanen looking on in horror. In injury time.

That moment left a lasting image not only on a passionate 16 year old boy from Espoo, but an entire footballing nation. The famous picture of Moilanen grasping air with a look of absolute horror on his face became the single iconic image of Finnish football, and it has stood to this day.

The scars never healed because Finland has dutifully continued it’s inept journey from crushing defeat to crushing defeat. Following lost leads at home to Germany and Turkey in following campaigns, my friend in misery Sasu and I coined a new name for the Olympic Stadium. If Old Trafford was the Theater of Dreams, the Olympic Stadium was the Theater of Broken Dreams. Little has changed since those days.

The 12 year odyssey of mediocrity, being just good enough to get your hopes up but never good enough to get to The Dance continues. They’ll always suck you in with promises of a better tomorrow, a good result here and another there. But in the end, that cold dagger of defeat guts you every two years like clockwork.

The two-year cycle of Finnish football fans began again with the draw of Sweden, Holland, Hungary, San Marino and Moldova. And hey, this time there’s actually some hope of qualifying. Again.

But I don’t care about that. I don’t care about facing the Netherlands or going toe to toe with neighbours Sweden. I couldn’t care less about about Sweden and their high and mighty view of Finland as Scandinavia’s retarded football cousin. All I can think about is that rain soaked night at the Theater of Broken Dreams and all the heartbreak that has ensued in the following 12 years.

I rarely get swept up in nationalistic rah-rah anymore these days, but that 16 year old boy in me is still screaming for redemption, and that day is finally coming. For the love of Teuvo Moilanen, beat the s*it out of ‘em. Then, maybe, the tortured nation of football can start healing.

Finnish readers are advised not to watch the following clip:

In part three of our pictorial roundup of 2009, we focus on the senior men’s national team. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Photo by Tero Wester.

Baxter had an eventful 2009. Finland’s qualification efforts ran aground, and the introduction of younger players went more slowly than many Finland fans would have liked. The loss to Russia and draw in Liechtenstein were particular low points, but Finland’s two victories over Wales ensured they retained third spot in the group.

Baxter has always talked about an evolution in the national team, a strategy to ensure that players are ready when they make the step up. The 2-1 victory over Wales in Helsinki and 1-1 draw in Germany four days later provided some vindication for the Birmingham-born coach. Sparv, Porokara, Hämäläinen, Moisander and Eremenko all played vital roles in those games, the question is whether they could all have played earlier or whether Baxter got their development plans just right.

At this stage it’s hard not to give him the benefit of the doubt, as some players met expectations (Moisander, Eremenko), while others exceeded them (Sparv, Hämäläinen, Porokara). Baxter’s contract runs until the end of the 2012 European Championships, or at least Finland’s involvement in it.

Finland coaching staff singing the national anthem before Finland v Russia in Helsinki. Photo by Tero Wester.

Finland’s coaching staff. Olli Huttunen, to Baxter’s left, was fighting for his survival as Haka’s head coach at this time, a fight he eventually lost to almost universal sympathy – his then boss, Seppo ‘Sedu’ Koskinen, is not regarded as an easy man to work for. Next up is Jari-Pekka Keurulainen, who has been part of Finland’s coaching setup since Antti Muurinen’s arrival in 2000, Heikki Kinnunen, team doctor, Paavo Leiramo, physio, and Kai Kyntölä, kit man.

Jonatan Johansson scores the first goal for Finland in their 2-0 win against Wales in Cardiff. Phot by Anu Laitila.

Prior to this match Finland were not in an optimistic mood, having lost 3-0 in Moscow the previous October to make qualification quite a long shot. The calls for renewal and youth were gaining a little currency, and failure to win in cardiff could have tipped the balance, but in the end a brilliant performance from Jari Litmanen helped secure a Finland victory. He played a central role in setting up this goal for Jonatan Johansson.

The 33 year old (since turned 34) was criticised afterwards by Welsh captain Craig Bellamy, who said he wasn’t ‘good enough to score’. He played his 100th international against Germany in Hamburg on 14 October, receiving bouquets from the Finnish and German FA’s and scoring the Finland goal. He spent several months out of contract in the summer before eventually signing for St Johnstone.

Finland's young midfielder before kickoff in Cardiff. Photo by Anu Laitila.

Tim Sparv broke into the full national team in 2009, forming a formidable partnership in central midfield with Roman Eremenko. Making his debut in the bizarre February friendly against Japan in Tokyo, he was then called up to the squad for the game in Cardiff, despite also captaining the Under-21s who were at a training camp in Spain at the time. His maturity is valued by Baxter, who places a lot of emphasis on mental strength and tactical intelligence.

When he gave a press conference in October with the leaders of the previous ‘golden generation’, Sami Hyypiä and Jari Litmanen, it looked very much like an introduction to the team’s new leader. Sparv secured himself a move to Groningen in the wake of his performances in the Under-21 European Championships, and he will officially transfer to the Dutch club on 1 January 2010.

'The King' orchestrated Finland's play in Wales. Photo by Anu Laitila.

Litmanen’s performance against Wales was superb. He barely moved outside of the centre circle, but he controlled Finland’s play with a range of passing and an intelligence that almost no other Finnish player has ever displayed. At the age of 38, it is still possible he will be part of the Finland squad in the forthcoming European Championship campaign, indeed the new chairman of the Finnish FA, Sauli Niinistö, publicly asked him to stay on during his election campaign.

Tihinen, Kallio and Heikkinen thank the 2,000 Finland fans after victory in Cardiff gave them a glimmer of hope of qualification for the World Cup. Photo by Anu Laitila.

Jääskeläinen and Pasanen celebrate the Wales victory. Photo by Anu Laitila.

Finland’s 2,000-strong following in Cardiff brought admiring coverage in the press, and gratitude from the players. Fulham defender Toni Kallio started the year well, with a good performance in Wales. The 31 year old left back faced tough competition from AZ Alkmaar’s Niklas Moisander, and the Wales match was probably to prove his high point of the year in a Finland shirt.

34 year-old Hannu Tihinen recovered well from a horror show against Russia in the previous qualifier. He was to suffer again in Helsinki against Guus Hiddink’s rapid counter-attacking side, but against Wales ‘Rautavuori’, or ‘Steel mountain’, looked solid and dependable. Markus Heikkinen had a role in every Finland game this year except Wales at home, and his tenacity and versatility are very useful in a squad like Finland’s.

Petri Pasanen’s versatility ensures that he is part of most Finland teams. He can play anywhere across the back line, and has done so for Finland, while Jussi Jääskeläinen announced his retirement from international football in October.

Finland fans let off a flare in Kamppi before marching to the Russia match. Photo by Tero Wester.

Finland’s supporter group, SMJK, has brought a hint of European football culture to international matches. Whereas most Finnish sporting events are accompanied by rhythmic clapping and shouts of ‘hei! hei! hei! hei!’, or ‘maali’, at Finland matches there is a ‘curva’, and a capo, and often excellent choreography.

They had been looking forward to this game against the Eastern neighbour, and they warmed up in their usual spot in the centre of town before marching along Mannerheimintie towards the Olympic Stadium. The footballers failed to heed the ‘time for heroes’ flag, unfortunately.

Finnish and Russian fans clash on Mannerheimintie before the match. Photo by Tero Wester.

SMJK’s march to the stadium was met near the National Museum by a large group of Russian fans also wanting to get to the ground. The resulting clash between the two groups, on one of Finland’s busiest streets during rush hour, was pretty much unprecedented.

“Finland has many presidents, but only one King”. The slogan sums up Litmanen’s position in society, and indeed the “king” moniker has spread beyond internet forums and into the mainstream media. He is pretty much a living deity.

Finland fans invoke the fight against Russification from the early part of the 20th century. Photo by Tero Wester.

Isto’s maiden is intended to represent Finland’s fight against Russian domination. In the original version the eagle – representing Russia – is attempting to take away Finland’s book of laws, when its autonomous Grand Duchy status and separate legal code within the Russian Empire was under threat in the last years of Tsarist rule. In June, SMJK replaced the book with a football for their choreography.

Finland's team photo before kick-off against Russia in Helsinki. Photo by Tero Wester.

This starting team had an average age of 30.5.

Arshavin in possession, as he seemed to be for much of the game. Photo by Tero Wester.

Litmanen struggled to recreate his Cardiff form against Russia, and the fast-moving, modern Russia side showed the limitations of a team reliant on experience rather than mobility. Litmanen himself has the vision and creativity to involve younger water carriers, but they were not in evidence against Russia, and after the Russia game renewal of the side began in earnest. Arshavin seemed to be a quicker, more inventive, sharper version of Litmanen, prompting comparisons with the King’s earlier years. The Arsenal man dominated Finland in Moscow and Helsinki, and the failure to deal with Russian movement on and off the ball was a big failing for Finland.

Eremenko under pressure from Zurianov. Photo by Tero Wester.

Eremenko was one of the few to emerge from the Russia game with any credit, as William Moore pointed out at the time. He was under some pressure beforehand, with the Russian media playing on his and his brother’s roots (both were born in Russia), but he responded well to the challenge. Although he has been playing at right-back for Dinamo Kiev, his is probably the first midfielder’s name on the teamsheet.

Alexei Jr in his second game back. Photo by Tero Wester.

The other Eremenko brother also had a decent 2009. After going incommunicado and getting dropped from the squad for the autumn 2008 qualifiers by text message, drink-driving issues and fitness difficulties, Eremenko was recalled to the squad for the wales match and has stayed there ever since. Now playing for Metalist Kharkiv in the Ukraine, his next challenge in the national team is holding down a place in a settled side.

Finland fans show their colours. Photo by Tero Wester.

The North Curve was the only section of the stadium without Russian fans, and even there a few flags appeared around the edges. It seemed as though half of Northwest Russia had arrived in Helsinki that day, but SMJK did their best to support their team anyway.

These fans went on to suffer their own heartbreak in the play-off against Slovenia. Photo by Tero Wester.

Russian fans and players celebrate their third goal against Finland in Helsinki. Photo by Tero Wester.

Some of the estimated 30,000 Russian fans celebrate their victory, which ensured that Finland’s hopes of qualifying for the World Cup disappeared.

Finland's captain makes a clearance. He was a busy man in the Russia game. Photo by Tero Wester.

Finland's captain with his eye on the ball. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Hyypiä had an eventful year. He was left out of Liverpool’s 2008-09 Champions League squad by Rafael Benitez, and the news broke in the build-up to Finland’s opening World Cup qualifier against Germany. He spoke of his hurt and shock at the decision, and his eventual departure from Liverpool began to look inevitable.

His form in a Finland shirt was mediocre, with Russia in particular giving the rather static Finnish defence nightmares, but the two games against Wales were cathartic for everyone involved. Hyypiä just about managed to keep his former team-mate Craig Bellamy in check, which did not make the Welshman happy, and is likely to continue in a Finland shirt until he decides he has had enough. He is ever-present for his new side, Bayer Leverkusen, who are challenging at the top of the Bundesliga, while his old club Liverpool look defensively weak and in danger of missing out on the Champions League.

In between the Russia match and the Wales game Finland scraped a victory in Lankaran, Azerbaijan, and drew 1-1 with Liechtenstein, which forced even Baxter to admit that qualification was ‘now very unlikely’. You can see pictures from the Liechtenstein debacle here, if you really want to.

Despite Everything, we're always here. Photo by Lauri Ouvinen.

The Azeris have been a bogey side for Finland, and a 2-1 win away from home is not to be sniffed at, but the Vaduz result was awful and the fans felt it necessary to make their views known with a banner before the Wales game. The text was ‘Kaikesta huolimatta, Me ollemme aina täällä’, which translates as ‘despite everything, we are always here’. The question was how many of the players from the older generation would also remain in the squad.

One of Finland's younger talents, Roni Porokara. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Porokara has taken a typical route for Finnish footballers, following his Veikkausliiga career with a spell in Allsvenskan. He joined Sixten Böström’s Finnish colony at Örebro when he left Honka, and has impressed so much he is unlikely to remain there in 2010. Rumours suggest he could take a very untypical route to Israel, with Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv possible destinations for the winger. Having started both the Wales and Germany games and scored the opening goal against Wales, he looks likely to remain in Stuart Baxter’s plans.

Bellamy shushes the Finland fans after equalising for Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Bellamy was prominent in the Finnish football year, after declaring that Finland and Wales were ‘two poor teams that haven’t got a hope in hell of qualifying’. Subsequent events arguably proved him right, with the Finns dropping points against a tax haven and failing to even nearly trouble Russia, but due to his tactless and provocative delivery, he still received near-constant abuse – in English – from the Finland fans, who alleged that he is a ‘homo’. This Wildean wit failed to put him off his game, and he scored Wales’s equalising goal.

Kasper Hämäläinen, Chris Gunter, and a ballboy. Photo by Krevis from ff2.

Hämäläinen got his first run-out (not counting the Japan match in February) as a substitute against Wales, replacing Joonas Kolkka in the 68th minute. he did well enough to get a starting spot against Germany, and played well again, but his club season ended in disappointment as TPS Turku missed out on the title. Expected to move abroad this winter, he will need regular playing time to ensure he retains his spot in the national side.

Niklas Moisander's goal against Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Niklas Moisander's goal against Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Niklas Moisander's goal against Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Niklas Moisander's goal against Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Niklas Moisander celebrates his goal against Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

Celebrations after Niklas Moisander's goal against Wales. Photo by Olli Jantunen.

This goal meant a lot to Moisander. In 2009 he won the Dutch league with Alkmaar, lost his coach Louis Van Gaal to Bayern Munich, and struggled to retain his position under new boss Ronald Koeman. His (some would say long overdue) establishment as a national team player was marked by this late winner in the Wales match, where he turned inside the defender and leathered the ball home from a tight angle. He spoke afterwards about the recent death of his grandfather, and his difficulties at club level, that ensured this goal – in his first Finland start at the Olympic Stadium – was important on a personal level.

Mutual applause for Finnish team, fans. Photo by, erm, 'Juustonacksu' from ff2.

You can see more pictures from Finland’s excellent yet slightly unlucky 1-1 draw in Hamburg at UEFA’s site.

Thanks, as ever, to Finns Worldwide, FutisForum2, Petteri Lehtonen, Olli Jantunen and Tero Wester.

]]> http://www.nordicfootball.info/finland/finland-2009-in-pictures-part-three/feed/ 5 http://www.nordicfootball.info/finland/johansson-scores-one-and-sets-up-another-as-finland-draw-in-hamburg/ http://www.nordicfootball.info/finland/johansson-scores-one-and-sets-up-another-as-finland-draw-in-hamburg/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:58:15 +0000 Egan Richardson http://www.nordicfootball.info/?p=3839

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.

Talking to Finnish football journalists always reminds me a little bit of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

“I was there when we drew with Liechtenstein, that was an awful night.”

“LIECHTENSTEIN? LUXURY! I’ve seen us draw 0-0 with Andorra!”

“That’s nothing – I was there when Shefki missed that last minute chance in Prague and the Czechs went up the other end and scored the winner.”

And so on, and on. This summer one member of the Finnish press corps boldly stated that he would get down on his knees after the game in Germany and beg Baxter to resign, such was his despair at Finland’s performances in recent times.

It is unlikely he will do so now, after Baxter revealed that speculation linking him with the now-vacant Sweden job had led the Finnish FA to think about extending his contract. If the anti-Baxter journalist does indeed follow through on his promise to beg Baxter to go, I certainly hope there are cameras there to record it.

Kasper Hämäläinen’s elevation to a starting place tonight is the boldest move Finland have made for a while, but then again, Germany are blooding youngsters too and the game is otherwise meaningless. Here is Finland’s team:

Jussi Jääskeläinen

Veli Lampi-Sami Hyypiä-Markus Heikkinen-Niklas Moisander

Tim Sparv-Roman Eremenko

Kasper Hämäläinen-Jari Litmanen-Roni Porokara

Jonatan Johansson

Hämäläinen has a massive week ahead, with tonight’s game against Germany followed by TPS-Honka on Saturday, that could decide the title. After that, he hopes to move abroad.

“I think I’m ready now,” he told NFN after the Wales game on Saturday. “I’ve been at TPS for five years now, and I’ve learnt a lot, but it’s time to move on. Last winter I filled out a lot after working in the gym, and this gave me a lot of self-confidence, as well as helping me play as an anchor man.”

It will be fascinating to see how he, Porokara, Moisander and Sparv do tonight in front of 55,000 in Hamburg. They were the standout players on Saturday, but Germany are an order of magnitude better than Wales, and the atmosphere will be slightly more intimidating.

It is a cruel world full of peril out there in international football and that is why, like a she-bear looking over her cubs, Stuart Baxter, the Finland coach, has been sheltering his young players before releasing them into the wild. However, on Saturday Baxter realised he was fighting a loosing battle against forces of necessity (as Teemu Tainio, Markus Heikkinen and Mikael Forssell were unavailable) and the Scot finally had to come good on his rebuilding promise. Finland fans witnessed the most positive line-up emerge form the tunnel at the Olympic Stadium for years and the new players proved Baxter’s fears groundless. Finland beat Wales 2-1 but the match itself or Finland’s team performance had lesser significance as the new generation of Finnish players took centre stage.

Obviously it would be naive to draw too many conclusions from a single game. But be that as it may, the injection of vitality in the aged limbs of the Finnish national team rekindled a kind of joy and enthusiasm (at least in me) which has been missing throughout the campaign. And that is reason enough to celebrate. The re-building process has been long overdue but now it is in motion at last. There is a future in Finnish football after all.

It is justifiable to claim, without even going overboard, that Roni Porokara, Tim Sparv, Niklas Moisander and Kasper Hämäläinen were the better performers for Finland, outshining the older hands they are to replace. They didn’t just tag along for the ride, hiding behind the shadow of experience but, on the contrary, the quartet took the initiative and made it their game. Porokara put in a man-of-the-match performance, scoring the first and setting up the second with a good all-round effort. Sparv played a balanced and almost flawless game, improving and taking more responsibility in the role of Finland’s attacking initiator as the game wore on. Moisander looked assured defensively, provided decent attacking options on his wing and scored a beauty with such understated grace you could mistake him for a world-class forward, if you didn’t know better. Hämäläinen came on in the 67th minute and immediately took the game in his stride with his active approach in the Finnish attacking third and got close scoring his first goal for Finland.

The quartet gave a fine presentation of the attributes that Finland need from its players in order to be successful in the future: good all-round technical skills, physical versatility, pace and dynamism, a touch of adventurousness and, above all, quality basic playing. Instead of world class players (let’s face it, it’s useless to daydream about them in this northern periphery), Finland require a steady flow of quality footballers whose overall attributes are in tune with the demands of the modern game. This doesn’t mean that Finland should start breeding players in a prescribed mould but it is simply a fact that since modern football is increasingly defined by pace and physicality (in all their manifestations, with and without the ball), players must be more and more complete as athletes in order to succeed.

For years the discourse on youth football in Finland has been governed by an over-emphasis on players’ individual technique. Of course, ball skills are of primary importance in football but it is no use talking endlessly about technical qualities unless these skills are incorporated into a broader perspective of football learning. Finland simply do not possess the mass from where to pick talents; to every exceptional young player found in Finland, nations like the Netherlands or Spain will produce five. Instead there should be an equal emphasis on the physical/ athletic qualities of Finnish youth players. The U21 match between Finland and the Netherlands on Friday was a painful but an important lesson on the importance of physicality.

At the Finnair Stadium, the Dutch brushed past a feeble Finnish squad and, although, Finland lost only 1-0 (thanks to a couple of excellent saves by Lucas Hradecky in the first half), there was such a huge difference between the readiness of the two teams that at worst it was like watching a cat toying with a mouse before putting it to the slaughter. Needless to say, the Dutch were technically much more efficient but they were also faster, stronger and more alert, winning most tackles and headers with considerable ease. It was indicative of Finland’s weaknesses that Toni Kolehmainen, the key player in centre midfield, was out-skilled and out-muscled in every respect throughout the match.

Finland were always going to lose in terms of the players’ individual skills but had Finland been capable of competing in the physical contest, they would have had a chance. What it boiled down to now was that Finland were lacking the athleticism to play effectively and coherently as a unit both in defence and attack. The visitors roamed freely in midfield as Finland could not muster any consistent and collective pressure, always being a step of two behind the Dutch. When in possession, rarely could Finland make an effective transition between defending and attacking. This was due to the lack of controlled defending since the midfielders were constantly drawn away from the positions from where they were supposed to launch a counter-attack when Finland got the ball. As a consequence, Finland’s attacks were mostly limited to individual efforts by Riku Riski and Teemu Pukki who were at times taking on three or four defenders without any back-up.

In the second half, Finland were more positive though. After the introduction of Jonne Hjelm, Akseli Pelvas and Aleksei Kangaskolkka, Finland started to get some shape and control in their game. The substitutes brought in exactly the kind of qualities Finland need to compete: physicality, directness and pace. Whether or not the players mentioned are good enough as individuals is not at issue here, what is at issue is that they represent the type of physical and dynamic players Finland should look for in the future.

The approach that was lacking, or at least belated, on Friday, was the key to Finland’s victory on Saturday. The new players are not world class by any standards but their collective qualities were enough to make the difference between two equal sides. Finland should not kid themselves, in terms of quality Wales represent exactly the kind of a team Finland must start beating consistently in the future in order to take a step forward.

*Scroll down for highlights*

It wasn’t exactly a momentous occasion. In the run-up to the game someone had scrawled “PALLOLIITTO HAISTAKAA VITTU” (“Finnish FA get to fuck”) on the wall outside the Football Association’s offices, evidence of the hostility Finland’s football decision makers can face when their performance is deemed unsatisfactory. The hostility comes from small but active proportion of the Finnish football family, and was exacerbated by the national team’s awful performances in Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein last month, when their slim chances of qualifying for the World Cup all but disappeared after a jammy 2-1 win over Finland’s bogey team Azerbaijan and a terrible 1-1 draw with Liechtenstein in Vaduz.

This was evident in the first half when SMJK, Finland’s supporters group, were silent for the first ten minutes in protest at “recent disappointments and the sisuless (gutless) qualification campaign”. On ten minutes they unfurled banners reading “Kaikesta huolimatta me olla aina täällä”, or “we’re here no matter what”. In case anybody thought this was directed solely at Baxter and his players, they then began chanting Sauli Niinistö’s name.

The speaker of the Finnish parliament has been widely touted as the next chairman of the Finnish FA, and as a wildly popular, modern, well-respected and thoroughly professional candidate, he is seen in some quarters as a panacea for Finnish football’s ills. Pekka Hämäläinen, the man Niinistö is tipped to replace, has been expert at balancing the regions and factions within the FA, without quite providing the dynamic leadership many fans feel Finnish football needs.

He will retire in November, but Niinistö is more likely to be a figurehead than an activist if elected, with power concentrating in the hands of Kimmo J Lipponen, the FA’s General Secretary who joined the organisation from Nokia in January 2008, and Petri Jakonen, who left TPS to become the FA’s “head of elite football” earlier this year. Part of Jakonen’s job is to re-negotiate the ten year contract Veikkausliiga has to run top flight football in Finland, or indeed to take it back under the FA’s wing when the current contract runs out in 2010.

Why does this matter in a match report from a World Cup qualifier? Well, partly because the match itself was nothing to write home about. Finland won 2-1 in front of a crowd of 13,301, in what was possibly Hyypiä and Litmanen’s last competitive home match, but neither side looked particularly impressive. The positive signs for Finland were offered solely by the new boys.

Niklas Moisander made his first home start and scored the winning goal with a storming run and classy finish, Roni Porokara kept Chris Gunter occupied and scored the first goal after Johansson’s shot as saved, and Tim Sparv came into his own as the match wore on and his confidence grew. Kasper Hämäläinen thoroughly enjoyed himself when he came on, flitting around a tired Wales defence and having one shot turned round the post by Hennessey.

The press even asked Baxter whether the inexperienced players given playing time today should have played in Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein after their excellent performances against Wales

“Absolutely not,” replied the ‘Birmingham-born Scot’, as Baxter seems to be labelled these days. “I didn’t want to break their confidence by freshening things up too quickly.”

Fair enough. His near-obsession with alleviating the pressure on his younger players paid off against Wales, and it seems as though he regards home games as a special event for Finnish players. After the game against Belarus in Turku – his first in charge of Finland on home soil – he commented that he had not realised what a big thing it was for Finnish players to play at home, and that maybe they were a little bit too hyped up for that game. Allowing them to stew on the big event for too long would have been foolish, and if Hämäläinen’s introduction was planned, the information did not filter through to the player himself.

“No, I didn’t even know what position I’d be playing,” he said afterwards. “I’ve been playing as a midfielder for TPS this season, but I’ve played as a winger for five years before that so it wasn’t too difficult to adjust.”

Moisander has had a tougher time recently, and his joy at scoring the winner was evident to everyone.

“It’s been a difficult time,” the AZ Alkmaar defender said after the game. “I’ve been sitting on the bench with my club side and then my grandfather died a few weeks ago. He was really important for me. Now I feel quite relieved.”

“This is one of the nicest moments of my career. I finally got to start a game at the Olympic Stadium, and we got an important win. Otherwise our play was patchy, as in the qualification as whole. This was no brilliant performance, but great that we won.”

Finland’s next match is away to Germany, and they will be without Petri Pasanen and Hannu Tihinen. A much changed defence will probably include Veli Lampi as one full-back, Niklas Moisander in the middle, and a makeshift right back. Roman Eremenko has been playing there for Dinamo Kiev recently, but maybe a more creative option would be Perparim Hetemaj. Baxter said he would think about the problem over dinner, so maybe he’s already made his mind up. After securing third place his job seems to be safe, but success depends on how quickly the younger players grow into their roles. On yesterday’s evidence, there may be reason for optimism on that front.

The last word should, of course, go to Craig Bellamy. When he and his team finally emerged from their post-game debriefing and came to the mixed zone, a Welsh journalist had asked him what positives he could take from the current campaign. “I think I’ll leave that one,” replied a sombre Wales captain.

He was subjected to some fairly moronic but badly pronounced homophobic chanting after his criticisms of Jonatan Johansson and Finland when the two teams met in Cardiff in March, and was in no mood to go over old ground when asked if he’d changed his mind.

“Did you think it was a good game? Was it a good game to watch?” he responded when NFN asked what he thought of Finland.

“It wasn’t great,” came my feeble reply.

“Well you know then. You know the score.”

“But nobody’s interested in my opinions…..”

“After a performance like that, I’m not sure anyone should be interested in mine.”

Finland Vs Wales 2:1 Video Highlights – The best bloopers are a click away

That’s the question that’s dominated a lot of the buildup to the penultimate game of Finland’s World Cup qualifying campaign. After the disaster in Liechtenstein, debate has centred on Stuart Baxter’s continued stewardship of the national team. The former South Africa coach and those within the Finland camp have emphasised the importance of retaining third place, as remaining in pot three for the next qualifying campaign’s draw will supposedly make things easier.

This argument is not all that convincing. If Finland are to qualify, they have to be better than teams in pot one or two, and that will be easier if 1) Finland have a settled side with some experience going in to the next campaign, and 2) there is an even group with everyone taking points from each other, unlike the cakewalk enjoyed by Russia and Germany this time.

The first objective is next to hopeless. Yesterday’s Finland press conference was something of a changing of the guard moment, with Sami Hyypiä and Jari Litmanen presented to the media along with Tim Sparv, the 22 year old midfielder who captained Finland Under 21s in the European Championships this summer. The older two refused to say whether the Wales game might be their last home match for Finland, while Sparv dutifully told of his desire to learn from the older, wiser heads in the Finland squad.

Speculation about the international retirement of Hyypiä and Litmanen occurred after the previous campaign too, but it is less plausible that they might carry on to play in qualifiers for the 2012 European Championship, when Litmanen will be 41 and Hyypä nearly 40. They’ve given a lot for Finland, with Litmanen virtually retiring from football to concentrate on his international career, but ultimately their big chance came in the 2000-2005 period, when both were regularly competing in the Champions League and Finland had a squad full of solid, confident players of international class. Antti Muurinen’s reign as national coach was the chance, and he blew it.

The task of renewing an ageing team will not be easy. Most of the squad has now moved to a weaker team or even a weaker league recently, or is fighting to get some playing time at their current club. Finding a young, in-form Finnish player playing outside the country is a tough ask, and that at least partly explains the call-up of Hermanni Vuorinen from FC Honka. The beanpole striker failed in Norway and at Werder Bremen, but has flourished in Veikkausliiga. Along with Ari Nyman, Kasper Hämäläinen and Jari Litmanen, Vuorinen represents a higher proportion of home-based players than I can remember in a Finland squad for a long time.

Of those players, only Hämäläinen really qualifies as ‘young’, and he is expected to move abroad at some point soon. The under-21s lost 1-0 at home to Holland last night, and in truth there were few candidates to make the step up in that side. They are inexperienced at under 21 level, very few of them having been promoted ahead of their contemporaries, and will not now qualify for a tournament as their predecessors did.

Finland were so utterly rubbish in the matches against Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein that it simply defies belief. Wednesday night goes down among the worst nights in the history of Finnish football. It wasn’t just that it was bad, it was bloody embarrassing. If this is the best that Mr. Baxter can provide with the selection of sixteen players he used, players who share a combined total of almost nine hundred international appearances of precious experience between them, and who obviously were the only ones he thought “ready enough” to take the field against the mighty opponents (he didn’t even bother to make a third substitution in the latter fixture), it is hard to find the words to describe the dismal state the Finnish national team is in. And it’s not just Baxter that is the problem: eight hundred caps and they still couldn’t stop Liechtenstein equalising after about a nano-second after Finland had taken the lead (with a Jari Litmanen penalty, how else?).

Perhaps Finland should just sit the upcoming Euro 2012 qualifying campaign out because this crap is clearly the best that the old players can produce, and if you take Baxter’s word for it (which, obviously, you shouldn’t), there are simply no new players there to pick from. This he didn’t forget to remind us for the one-hundred and twenty-first time during the last week after the Liechtenstein game in Helsingin Sanomat: “There is pressure to bring in young players, but between them [the drooling toddlers who are trying to learn how to crawl and to break into the squad at the same time] and the experienced players, there still remains a clear gap”. Good grief and almighty. Some coaches have the decency to be honest. Some have the integrity to resign (like the Belgium coach Frank Vercauteren did after disasterous results in Spain and Armenia, explaining his decision like so: “When you think you cannot teach a team anything any more, when you think it’s hopeless, you have to quit.” True words.). But some just creep deeper and deeper into their shell, put on the defensives and be even more cautious and afraid in the future. Take your Baxter-pick from the three options.

In Azerbaijan, it was, conveniently, the Finnish centre-backs Hannu Tihinen and Petri Pasanen who had to save Finland and Baxter from a total media hammering by securing three points from the lacklustre game. The performance was absolutely miserable but the points gave Baxter some breathing space to try to mastermind a reaction of any kind in Liechtenstein. However, the Liechtenstein match simply left no causes for absolution and no excuses for the Scotsman any more. Finland’s football was so sub-standard against a team that, despite Baxter trying to convince everyone otherwise with his mantra of how insurmountably dangerous they are, should be a footnote in the story of Finland’s campaign. Somehow Finland managed to make Liechtenstein the thematic conclusion.

Finland’s game was riddled with similar flaws in both matches, flaws Baxter couldn’t negotiate either during a week of rigorous preparation nor in 180 minutes of football. Finland’s play was branded by a curious mixture of drowsiness and hastiness. At times you felt spiders spinning webs on your face as the midfielder were nesting the ball for all their worth, but then at other times there seemed to be a bunch of kids playing in a park who were full off complacency and no discipline. The former defect was evident when Finland had the opportunity to open play quickly and catch the defence with their pants down. The reaction with the ball in these situations, which is one of the central theses in Baxter’s game plan, was often veeeeery slow. When, however, it was time to slow down and simply keep possession to create disorganisation in an organised defence, Finland were too hasty in their passing. It was excruciating to see someone like Teemu Tainio time and again trying to deliver flashy final passes from closer to the halfway line than the goal. With all his experience, he should know better.

It didn’t help the midfield though that when they got possession the attacking players were too pedestrian and often positioned neatly in a four man line, hand in hand with the opponent’s defenders. Although Jonatan Johansson broke through dangerously a couple of times from the right, Finland’s use of the flanks was too monotonous and easily foreseeable as their distribution lacked the exploitation of width and variety. For instance, only rarely did Finland shift flanks in the middle of an attack in order to try to create space in the opponent’s defence by making the defence unit move; at most times they just stubbornly attempted to go through either from the left, right or through the middle without any variation.

Also, invention and adventurousness was missing from Finland’s approach. Until the end of the second half in the Liechtenstein match, it seemed the players had forgot that they can actually try to shoot from distance and not just roll the ball nicely to Litmanen or to either of the flanks, as if they were practising attacking moves on a training pitch. It was also very alarming to see that the Finnish defence (lead by the triangle of Sami Hyypiä-Tihinen-Jussi Jääskeläinen, with 226 international appearances) looked shaky and dis-organised way too often. All in all, Finland’s game lacked common sense.

Pasi Rautiainen would have been right in the post-match studio on Canal Plus and TV Viisi if he had said that “I mean, look. We have this Scottish coach with a moderate name for himself and, granted, he even has something to show for it, who comes here with grand talks about creating a new Finland, and all that bullshit. But when push comes to shove, he cannot walk the walk and provide the new outlook but simply just hides behind the same old players we’ve been watching fail for about ten years now. His game plan, whatever it might be, simply doesn’t work, with the result that Finland play rubbish. He could even get away with it if the results were there, like with Hodgson, but they aren’t.”

Well, to be quite honest, outspoken as he is, that was not what Rautiainen actually said. But that was what he probably meant when he said that there is something seriously wrong if Finland’s solution is to bring on someone like Shefki Kuqi in the dying minutes against Liechtenstein. Baxter might as well have put Hyypiä up-front.

When it was still 0-0, with about twenty minutes to go, Baxter was reportedly preparing to bring in Roni Porokara. However, after five minutes as Finland had first scored and then conceded, he turned to Kuqi. When the coach offers players such as Kuqi and Joonas Kolkka as solutions to problems the two are actually the cause of, the alarm bells indeed should start ringing. Kuqi had already such a rubbish match on Saturday when his only noteworthy input was to create the Azerbaijan goal. After that, one would have thought that Baxter had finally realised the incapability of the player. Then again, one had all the reason to presume that Baxter had also figured out months ago that Kolkka has nothing to offer to the national squad any more (Sure, if you must, he can be selected in the team to shoot the shit in the dressing room, but to use him as an impact substitute…). But all this was and is obviously wishful thinking as Baxter introduced both players in both matches, in an Antti Muurinen-like fashion, simply because he didn’t know what else to do (or if he did, he just didn’t have the backbone to carry it through). Youth is not an absolute value but neither is experience.

True to Baxter’s defeatist mantra, the matches turned out to be every bit as difficult as he had foreseen. With this in mind, Baxter must be thanking his lucky stars that he refrained from doing any rash experimentations with new players against a deadly team like Liechtenstein, since if a Finnish team boasting such experience can only escape with a point from the infernal atmosphere at the Rheinpark Stadion, starting the process of gradual implementation of new players on Wednesday could not have resulted in anything else than a brutal beating.

Finland’s confidence is shattered. The young players disillusioned. And the last of Baxter’s credibility gone. October might be even more miserable than it always is in Finland.

It is going to be a crucial week for the Finland coach Stuart Baxter as his team travel to Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein. The week might even become to define his era as the coach of the Finnish national team in two respects. Firstly, even though again Finland can only fantasise about qualifying for the World Cup, they nevertheless must get results from the two footballing minnows (simply for the sake of winning but also in order to get the third seeding for the Euro 2012 qualifying draw), a defeat or even a draw against either one would make a big dent in Baxter’s credibility. Secondly, and more importantly, Finland need to start preparing for the next qualifying campaign by building up a new squad.

Baxter has, of course, already dabbled with the re-building process but now the transition has to be implemented in practice. The Scot selected four former under 21 players in Tim Sparv, Perparim Hetemaj, Berat Sadik and Kasper Hämäläinen in the squad, but the real issue will be whether or not Baxter has the courage to use them in key roles to which they need to adapt before the Euro 2012 qualifiers. If he dares not commence the process fully in the match against Azerbaijan and especially Liechtenstein, what chance is there that he’ll do it against Wales and Germany in October?

The Finnish football media and fans have shown peculiar patience with Baxter despite the slow progress he has been able to make in terms of results and the re-building process; a character virtue most did not showcase when Roy Hodgson was in charge. This brings us to another more symbolic significance of the Azerbaijan match. The game functions as a possible re-enactment of the event that perversely came to define the whole period under Hodgson’s management: Finland lost 1-0 in Baku after a drab performance two years ago.

After the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign ended with a goalless draw in Porto in November 2008, leaving Finland out of the tournament by the narrowest of margins, it didn’t take long for most Finns to forget how successful the Hodgson era actually was: Finland were A SINGLE goal away from the biggest achievement in the history of the Finnish national team. Close but no celebrations in Senate Square and so the Mora knives were out and collectively stuck in the back of the Englishman as quickly as he turned it on the Finnish national team in order to pursue more realistic and appealing prospects elsewhere (he seems to have thought that saving Fulham, who were doomed to relegation in the late stages of the 2007-2008 season, was a more realistic task than dragging Finland to South-Africa from a group which includes Germany and Russia. And as it turned out, it was). Hodgson’s pragmatic tactics, the Azerbaijan match usually cited as key evidence, were branded as “anti-football” and “repulsive”.

True, Hodgson’s football wasn’t pretty and yes, he should’ve at least employed his full-back more in attack especially against weaker opponents. But prettiness doesn’t really come to the equation, especially to his equation. The point was that Hodgson’s Finland were at most times effective and his tactics were true to the most fundamental thesis in football management: utilise the qualities of your squad to the maximum. In other words, maximise the strengths of your team. Defence was the only real strength Hodgson’s Finland had and so he used all his organisational skills to make the Finnish defensive third a fortress. And for achieving this, Hodgson was chastised.

So far, Baxter has failed implementing a coherent playing style that would provide results as well as consistent performances; something that Hodgson delivered. There hasn’t been any feel-good victories like the Belgium game. No shock away triumphs like the Poland match. And no instances when Finland have held on to a victory by nail and teeth. Baxter’s Finland have been impressive at times but hardly ever a unit that fills you with confidence. Until now, only the Wales match has provided evidence to the contrary. Already after six games, qualifying hopes, that were alive until the final whistle of the last match in the Euro qualifiers, have been shattered as Finland have been able to collect only ten points. As yet only a few voices in the media have criticised the national team but now critical, demanding voices are beginning to be heard.

After Hodgson, the Finnish media and most football followers were more than happy to welcome the well-spoken Scot. And who can blame them? Baxter straight away gave the impression of being much more positive by nature and more involved in the over-all development of Finnish football than the serious and laconic Englishman. Baxter came across even as a bit of a romantic in his footballing ideology. In truth, however, when compared to his old-school predecessor, he is –in the absence of a better word– a modern pragmatist. Baxter likes to talk about the importance of creating a Finnish footballing identity and about building a new national squad by using the experienced players as a bedrock in the process. And he is right of course. Finland need to understand what they are about in footballing terms; to become conscious of their collective strengths and weaknesses, to increase the former and decrease the latter as effectively as possible. And oh yes, Finland must build a new national squad. He is also right in saying that it must be a disciplined and gradual process even though there are some very promising players coming through. This is all very well in theory but to implement these novel ideas in practice now when change has become a necessity, radical measures need to be taken. This is a dilemma Baxter is having trouble solving.

In terms of the overall picture of the national team’s and Finnish football’s progress, it is essential that the process is started well before the next Euro qualifiers for the simple reason that the new players will get experience from tough qualifying matches. In other words, it simply won’t be enough anymore that a couple of youngsters are included in the team. The re-building process is long overdue despite Baxter’s flirtations with a couple of inexperienced players such as Roni Porokara and Sparv. There are only four qualifying matches to go so there really is no more time to nest up-and-coming players on the bench. Baxter explained the slowness of the re-building process in Helsingin sanomat on 27 August by stating the obvious that there is a huge gap between the standards of the established players and the young players who are coming in. However, this is also the oldest explanation of a coach who is afraid of putting faith in youth. It is self-evident that young players are seldom tactically and/ or mentally ready to take the leap from the U21 team to the full national squad straight away. They need to adapt not only to the team’s tactical plan and the footballing requirements of international game but also to the customs and habits of the national team and because of this they should be gradually nurtured into the team. And all this naturally takes time. But time is something Finland have already wasted quite enough of, and so the process needs to start now, regardless whether the players in question tick all the boxes in Baxter’s definition of ‘being ready’.

So Baxter is in a tight spot. If he wants to be the high-priest of development he so keenly preaches about, he has to start hacking down some of the dead wood in the squad, even at the risk of deteriorating results. However, his courage might fail him when push comes to shove and he might trust in the old hands (meant not only in literal terms) to pull off the umpteenth one last hurrah (which in this case means a third place in the group, so hip hip hurrah indeed!) before the transition process is finally initiated. The romantic in him would probably take the hard way and wield the axe but the pragmatist seems to be too cautious to deliver what he has promised.

The case of Jukka Raitala

After the Euro U21 tournament, many people were demanding for a straightforward inclusion of many of the “Pikkuhuuhkajat” players to the full national team. With some (like Jukka Raitala, Hetemaj and Sparv) the calls were well-founded but with others (for instance, Teemu Pukki) they were, unfortunately, still premature. Baxter selected Sparv, Hetemaj, Hämäläinen and Sadik in the squad for the next two qualifying matches against Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein, as already mentioned. Statistically this is a great achievement, presuming that all of them become national team regulars. Four players coming through form one U21 team at the same time is basically a statistical anomaly. But then again, when one considers that the players will turn twenty-three or twenty-four before the start of the next qualifying campaign and when the fact is added that they share a total of nine full appearances between them, the statistics somehow do not impress that much any more. Even Italy, perhaps the most conservative of football nations, who are in a similar re-building process as Finland, have an equal number of ‘new’ players who were still qualified to play in the U21 tournament last June (the youngest of which is only eighteen). And mind you, the young Italians are in contention of being selected to the World Cup squad, not to a match against Liechtenstein.

Although in theory Baxter is right in saying that raw players need to learn to swim before throwing them in the deep end, with some players his protectiveness only fails to disguise his cautiousness. It is very questionable whether a friendly (like the Sweden match two weeks ago) or a qualifier against Liechtenstein would result in a figurative drowning of a player who has just taken the Euro U21 championships by storm and has a total of nineteen U21 caps . In Jukka Raitala Finland have a natural player for the troubling left-back position. The always uncomfortable but surprisingly efficient Toni Kallio made the position his own during Hodgson’s term but now his number seems to be up in terms of the national team selections.

Baxter is likely to use Niklas Moisander (a centre-back by trade at AZ Alkmaar) at left-back for the rest of the qualifiers and consequently deny Raitala the chance he unquestionably deserves. However, I certainly don’t mean that Moisander should be dropped. What I mean is that since, by any logic, Raitala will be Finland’s left defender for years to come, and should claim the position for himself already during the next qualifying campaign, he should at least be included in the squad. Moisander should play in the centre which would serve best the development of both the national team and the player. One cannot dismiss the experience Hannu Tihinen brings to the squad but it’s time for Moisander to step in. The U21 team won’t do any services to Raitala’s progress any more, that much we all saw in the U21 Euro Championships; and in the worst case, it could hamper his development.

A lack of respect for the Veikkausliiga

One of the biggest losses of this kind in Finnish football in the last few years was losing a huge talent in Markus Halsti. It fills me with a deep melancholy that the Malmö FF player, who was perhaps the most talented Finnish centre-back of the players born in the eighties, has not become a regular in the national team. It is almost impossible to say what causes a young player not to reach the pinnacle of his potential (with Halsti there were, for instance, injuries at crucial stages of his career and Keith Armstrong as coach at HJK, a coach who isn’t exactly renowned for his capability to develop young players). Whatever the reason, the selection policy used in the national team did not do him any favours either.

By looking at the selections of the Finnish national squad during the last couple of years, one can draw the conclusion that the national team coaches do not appreciate the Veikkausliiga as much as they should. Instead of selecting promising young Veikkausliiga players, there has been a predisposition to include players who play in Norway or Sweden (Juha Pasoja comes to mind). This begs the question: does a transfer to some mediocre club outside Finland really make you a better player? If a player is not good enough for selection when playing in the Veikkausliiga, does he become eligible, as if in a wave of a magic wand, when transferred abroad. Even though there have been hints that this trend might be changing (Joni Aho’s inclusion in the Sweden friendly was a positive surprise), there still remains a lingering feeling that Veikkausliiga players are overlooked by the Finland coaches.

Obviously any national team’s selection policy favours players who can instantly be fitted into the playing system without drastic changes in tactics. Therefore, the inclusion of a player like Pasoja can be justified because he is a like-for-like replacement for Tihinen (looks a bit like him as well). He’s rubbish perhaps but nevertheless a similar type of player. When looking at the big picture, however, in the case that there actually is a rare talent in the Veikkausliiga who is knocking on the door of the national team (like it was with Halsti and is with Raitala, who technically still is a Veikkausliiga player although he went on loan to Hoffenheim), it just escapes all meanings of the word ‘development’ (a word that Baxter, for one, likes to use) that they are overlooked.

To come back to the present situation, now that Finland have such an enormous, rare and ready talent like Raitala, they simply cannot afford to wait for the player to ‘come good’ before giving him a chance on the big stage. The big stage is exactly where a player like Raitala would show that. Finland are not Italy who can miss out on a couple of age-groups worth of talent without even making a dent in the squad. And if it should come down to it, I’d rather see Finland ‘losing’ a promising player every now and again by taking a gamble on him than by wasting age-group after age-group by categorically declining them opportunities to impress. It is obviously a huge responsibility for the coaching staff to make these kinds of decisions but hardly ever is a player’s career destroyed in a single game; I would like to think that the scouts monitoring a player’s progress are not dumb, and that the mentality of a young Finnish player is not that of a terrified and insecure teenager who will collapse after the first sign of failure.

If Baxter fails to provide the results in Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein, and more significantly if he doesn’t have the courage to start incorporating the fresh faces into the Finnish team, the patience shown by the Finnish fans and media must seriously start to drain out. If changes are not made before the next home match in October, the hard-core fans at the Olympic Stadium should not continue chanting “Baxterin johdolla” in a unanimous chorus of support. It is time to act but, unfortunately, there is a growing sensation that Stuart Baxter is all talk. The Azerbaijan game that came to define the Hodgson era, may do the same for Baxter. Hopefully, this time, in a positive light.

STUART BAXTER is a polite and eloquent man, but at a Finnish FA press lunch given on Finland’s final day at the UEFA under-21 championships he found it difficult to express his feelings without recourse to an expletive. He had watched Finland’s previous two matches from the enclosure reserved for scouts, and their constant queries about the relatively unknown Finns had exasperated him.

“I had to do this at one point,” Baxter explained, putting his hands over his ears. “There were three or four people all asking ‘who does he play for?’, ‘how much might he cost?’, and so on, while I was watching the game and thinking ‘f*ck! come on lads’.”

Probably without realising it, Baxter had shown the two schools of thought on Finland’s tournament. On the one hand, they played quite well in patches and were not outclassed as some had feared, changing the perceptions of opinion formers and decision makers in bigger footballing countries than Finland.

On the other, they’d lost all three games, conceded six goals, and failed to score from open play. Baxter described this as a lack of “streetwise” attitude, a difficulty of making the correct choices at crucial moments that comes from an inexperienced team.

Finland certainly lacked a killer instinct when presented with an England side down to ten men and the score at 1-1. Their defending at set pieces let them down in that game and was pin-pointed as a weakness by coach Markku Kanerva after the tournament, but the biggest problem for Finland was a lack of attacking edge and a tendency to tire late on.

The first problem stems from squad selection. When Roman Eremenko pulled out of the squad citing tiredness, the chance to bring in a young, attacking midfielder with a good passing range presented itself. Finland have a wealth of players fitting that description in the age group below this one, including players like FF Jaro’s Sebastian Mannström and TPS Turku’s Riku Riski.

Instead of giving those players a chance to test themselves before their own qualification campaign starts, Kanerva called up Haka defender Petri Viljanen. Viljanen has played Veikkausliiga football for a couple of years now, and not always looked comfortable. Taking him to Sweden was a cautious move, and in the end he did not play a minute.

Would they have turned things around if the younger, more attack-minded playmakers had been waiting on the bench when Finland’s chips were down? Probably not, but they would definitely have learnt something from the experience. Nippy wingers like Juha Hakola and Ilari Aijala were preferred, and they just did not have the class to turn games against the best Europe has to offer.

These minor quibbles aside, the avoidance of humiliation and the likelihood of foreign transfers for a good few of the Finnish squad are respectable results in themselves.

Expectations should be higher next time, and the challenge for the Finland set-up is now both to integrate those who impressed into the senior side – Sparv and Sadik having done enough to move up pretty much immediately, with others providing good options – and to improve on this tournament with the next batch of under-21 players.

'I love you Jari', reads the banner. Picture from Lauri Ouvinen.

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 a well-worked move down the left, ensuring a nervy evening for everyone with Finland sympathies.

Mikael Forsell should have scored twice before Frick’s goal, stumbling both times, but after Liechtenstein went ahead there was a spell when the Alpine tax haven looked as though they could cause an upset. Finland’s rhythm was disrupted, and the crowd became a little bit nervous.

Credit to the Finnish players for sticking at it, then. Asked whether this was a maturity test for his team, Stuart Baxter admitted that yes, it was, and he was pleased Finland passed it.

“When people say you’re expected to win, and you go a goal down, that’s a test for quite a few of the players. For Lampi, the Eremenkos – it’s a test for them to see how they react, and I’m pleased that they handled it the right way. Of course there’s a spell of five minutes or so when you’re a bit nervy after conceding, but we got through that.”

The 20,000 fans inside the stadium – including very few Liechtensteiners, it must be said – were relieved when Mikael Forsell flicked his third clear cut chance of the game past Peter Jehle after tidy work down the left from Eremenko Jr.

Finland’s flank play was a strength, and Baxter took the decision to emphasise this in the second half as the search for an equaliser intensified. Lampi came on for Pasanen, and pushed forward aggressively, supporting Johansson’s marauding runs.

The Hibernian man, who has not scored a single goal for his club this season, was set free by Roman Eremenko in the 71st minute before rifling the ball into the opposite corner. It was from a similar position to the goal he scored against Wales in March, on the right hand corner of the box, although Johansson relied power rather than placement, or the poor position of the goalkeeper that had helped him finish against Wales.

The game finished with the usual cameo for Shefki Kuqi. He is the most brick-warehouse-like player I have ever seen, with defenders regularly bouncing off him and falling to the ground while the referee waved play on. On one such run he flattened three Liechtensteiners, went through on the keeper, and blazed the ball so wide it just avoided going out for a throw-in.

Although he could have picked out an unmarked Forsell in front of goal, a less granite-chested player simply wouldn’t have got into that position. The crowd acknowledged his unique, flawed but undeniably exciting gifts with a rousing chant of his name. It’s nice that he’s found his role with the team, a role understood and accepted by all involved. Lesser men than Shefki might resent the lack of playing time, but he plays his role magnificently.

So Finland move on to the Russia game next Wednesday with their World Cup dream intact. It looked a bit shaky for a while, but as their mantra has been almost since they opened their campaign with a 3-3 draw against Germany last September: if they beat the Russians in Helsinki then its all to play for.

After a lot of tut-tutting over Craig Bellamy’s idiotic comments, the Finnish squad is looking a little bit threadbare as they prepare for the vitally important friendly against Norway. Lillestrom keeper Otto Fredriksson will watch the game from the sidelines so as to avoid aggravating a troublesome knee. Niklas Moisander has decided he doesn’t want to hang around watching the other fullbacks, and has decided to go back to Alkmaar and train. Kari Arkivuo – not exactly indispensible to Finland’s midfield at the best of times – has gone back to Holland to train with his club. Sami Hyypiä and Jussi Jääskeläinen won’t be playing either.

It’s an odd situation when fringe players like these turn down the opportunity to represent their country, but that may be a consequence of the unmoveability of the senior players in the side. That said, Baxter has spoken of a desire to include Tim Sparv and Roni Porokara, so maybe we’ll see something new and interesting.

NFN got the team for the Wales game right, in large part thanks to a pre-posting discussion with Janne Oivio. It seems there is a lot to be said for staying at home and guessing, as Robert Laul discovered when naming the correct Sweden side before their match in Portugal. Unfortunately I’ve got absolutely no idea for this one, so you’ll have to wait and see. Feel free to laugh heartily at this when the team is announced, then:

Bahne

Pasanen Tihinen Kuivasto Kallio

Eremenko Jr Heikkinen Eremenko Porokara

Litmanen

Kuqi

This version of Bellamy’s post-match interview was mocked up by a Finland fan, as you can probably work out from the eagle owl and sheep-bothering montage at the end. I’ve seen it a couple of times now, and I still can’t quite believe that Craig Bellamy (international goals: 16) is criticising Jonatan Johansson (international goals: 19). That gobsmackingly unprofessional dig aside, it’s a refreshingly honest assessment of the game and the group, although maybe not what a captain should be saying when he has a dressing room full of inexperienced young players. His predicting abilities are not too clever either, as Finland will not be out of the group unless they lose at home  to Russia in June, but at least the Wales game in Helsinki next October will have a bit of needle now, regardless of whether either side can qualify.

Now on to the task at hand, the lauding of Litmanen. I’ve been a little critical of him in the past, as his fitness has been erratic and his form occasionally indifferent. He played extraordinarily well yesterday though, even allowing for the anonymous Welsh midfield, and by full time Litmanen’s boss had gone all weak kneed and dewy eyed about his captain:

“I put my arm around him [Litmanen] at the end and said, ‘What an amazing man you are’,” said Stuart Baxter, Finland’s manager.

That response was quite restrained by Finnish standards. One thread on the main Finnish football messageboard contained 190 messages, all including the words ‘Jari I love you’ or expressing a need to demonstrate this love physically. Maybe some of our readership more familiar with the works of Freud than I am could explain what this might mean. For now I think the “Finland has had many presidents, but only one king” slogan best expresses Litmanen’s position, but a religious analogy would not be too far off the mark either.

In a fairly non-religious society, where people are born into and pay taxes to the Church (although it is easy to escape that taxation and belief system by resigning from the Church on the internet), Litmanen sometimes seems like the closest thing Finns have to a deity they can worship. His injury tribulations are everyone’s conern and his commitment to the Finnish national team over and above any fleeting relationship with a club that pays him a salary shows his devotion to his worshippers, the Finnish people. Goal.com commented on this commitment, which does indeed go against the grain of international retirements among elite players:

The former Liverpool, Ajax and Barcelona play-maker has won countless honours at all echelons of European football, and has spent the latter part of his career, apart from a brief spell at Fulham, back in Scandinavia, initially with Malmo FF. He is currently with FC Lahti in the nation of his birth, and has made fewer than 30 competitive appearances since 2005 at club level as his playing career winds down.

But he is the greatest Finnish player ever to grace the game, and until he announces his retirement he will perennially be involved for his country. It is almost as if he is going against convention; his club minutes have been limited in order to prolong his inclusion in the national side.

It isn’t difficult to see why. Despite being twice the age of fellow midfielder Roman Eremenko he was still, by some distance, the stand-out player on the pitch. He provided an assist and was always making himself available for the ball as a shining example that, in the modern game, physical strength and athleticism can on occasion be no match for a superior footballing brain.

The Times also extolled Litmanen’s virtues, quoting Baxter’s analysis of what his playmaker can and cannot do at this stage of his career:

However, Stuart Baxter, the English manager of Finland, tolerantly said: “You never know, Finland might go stone cold in their next game, while Wales might even win against Germany.”

It does seem most unlikely. Very properly, Baxter had the highest praise for the display of the remarkable 38-year-old Jari Litmanen, surely the finest player Finland has produced, and in his prime one of the finest in Europe.

Litmanen, who once played for Ajax and for Liverpool, is back in his home country playing for FC Lahti and has had to surmount years of painful and restricting injury. But it was gloriously clear yesterday that age does not wither him.

As Baxter said: “Jari Litmanen has shown people his class all over the world. He can’t make the forward runs he made, but he can find spaces to create spaces. Sometimes you expect people to stop. I don’t think he expects himself to stop. He’s been preparing a long time for this game. The way he played, controlling the game, it was a marvellous performance.”

HBL asked Baxter if he was satisfied, and drew a predictable response:

“I’m satisfied with the performance, satisfied with the result, satisfied with the players and satisfied that we had 2,000 fantastic supporters in the stands.”

Ah yes, those fans. For weeks now Finnish supporters have been eagerly perusing the menus of the cheapest Mcpub chain in Britain, wondering if you really can buy beer and food that cheaply. They have surely made a big contribution to the UK’s economy in it’s hour of need.

The last word, of course, should go to the King himself. Does he think it can get much better than this for Finnish football?

“I have a feeling that with more focused training I could be even better than I am now.”

We’ll see in June, when Finland play Russia, and maybe before that, when FC Lahti start their Veikkausliiga campaign.

Feel free to discuss this and more at the NFN Facebook group.

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 other sport on their home territory. They’ve followed different strategies recently though, and Wales’s startlingly youthful side showed the pros and cons of this strategy in the first half.

For a while after the kick-off it appeared as though the Finnish defenders were too static, too slow, too old to keep up. Craig Bellamy, Simon Davies and Gareth Bale whizzed past the full backs without a second glance, but their crosses evaded forwards, were intercepted by defenders (or on one occasion, central midfielder Markus Heikkinen, dropping deep like we had hoped they would not) or were plucked out of the air by Finnish ‘keeper Jussi Jääskeläinen. When a cross was finally met by a Welsh head, Collins put it straight at Jääskeläinen.

The Finns were playing in front of the Welsh back four, however, ignoring the channel-working so beloved of British sides. Bellamy’s role was roughly analogous to Litmanen’s, dropping deep to pick the ball and create something, but they had very different approaches to their task. Bellamy dribble, fast, and hope to play in wingers or overlapping fullbacks, while Litmanen sat back, waited, took an extra second or two before picking his pass. The Welsh strategy created more openings in the first half, but they failed to capitalise on any of them and Finland took the lead just before half time with a well-worked goal.

Jonatan Johansson started the move off in his own half, passing to Alexei Eremenko Jr, who fed Litmanen. The FC Lahti midfielder played a beauty of a through ball inside Gareth Bale for Johansson to collect. There was still a lot for the Hibs striker to do, as the angle was acute and James Collins was tearing across the pitch to close him down, but luckily for Johansson the Wales goalkeeper Wayne Hennessy had a rush of blood to the head and steamed out of his goal. The ball looked to take a slight defelection as Johansson shot from the right-hand corner of the area, but it just about evaded Bale as he raced back attempting to clear.

VIDEO: Johansson scores Finland’s first

There was still time for the Finns to have a penalty shout turned down, after Litmanen and the Eremenko brothers combined neatly down the left. Roman Eremenko’s cross reached Forssell, but the Hannover forward went down under Bale’s challenge, which the referee adjudjed fair even though Bale did not touch the ball. It was an even first half, and Finland were a little fortunate to be a goal up.

“When we sat back a bit too deep in the first half it wasn’t fantastic, as they got past our full-backs a few times, but then we got the goal at a crucial time and the second half was much better,” Stuart Baxter told Finnish TV after the final whistle.

There was one second half scare when Bellamy nicked the ball from Hyypiä and played in Koumas, but the former Tranmere man could only shoot straight at Jääskeläinen. After that Finland ran the game, with their talisman Jari Litmanen – known as ‘the King’  in Finland -  in majestic form. Litmanen and Eremenko Jr had shown glimpses of what they could do in the first half, but after the break they started to dominate. Litmanen seemed to have the freedom of Cardiff, bisecting the Welsh defence at will, while Eremenko Jr was clearly trying to prove a point after his exclusion from Finland’s squad in the autumn.

The FC Saturn striker stung Hennessy’s hands with a shot from 30 metres out, released Pasanen down the right for the full back to cut inside and see his shot blocked by a panicking James Collins, and generally looked in menacing form. Baxter had said before that Wales wouldn’t know anything about him, as he plays in Russia and has not featured in any of Finland’s qualifiers so far, and it certainly looked like they were bemused by his runs and movement.

The star of the show, and Finland’s undoubted man of the match, was Litmanen. He was the hub of Finland’s attack, and his passing was a masterclass in precision and vision. Even his corners were impressive, with one picking out Hannu Tihinen, whose header was cleared off the line by Joe Ledley. He was of course involved in substitute Shefki Kuqi’s clinching goal, laying the ball off to Roman Eremenko, who pinged the ball into space for Kuqi to run on to before confidently curling the ball past Hennessy into the far corner.

VIDEO: Kuqi makes it 2-0

By this time only the Finland fans could be heard, unsurprisingly. They can celebrate a great performance – described afterwards as ‘our most complete yet’ by Litmanen – and revitalised qualification hopes ahead of the Norway friendly next Wednesday.

“We said before the game that it was going to be difficult, and it was because both teams had to win,” Baxter continued to his beaming TV Viisi interviewer. “We’ll keep hoping, but if we only hope we’ll never qualify, we have to actually do it. We’ll enjoy this one, but then we have to get our feet back on the ground and prepare for the next one.”

If Finland are the mirror image of Wales, it is probably a fairground attraction mirror showing them what they could be in a few years, if they keep developing as they have been doing. The Finns’ experience and class showed today, and ensures they can go into June’s qualifier against Russia in Helsinki cautiously optimistic.

Finland are suffering from the usual injury worries, with Teemu Tainio and Mika Väyrynen out, but Jari Litmanen’s fitness is a welcome boost for Stuart Baxter. The FC Lahti striker, who scored the first ever goal at the Millenium stadium in 2000, has recovered from a clash of heads that saw him withdraw midway through Lahti’s League Cup tie against HJK Helsinki on Saturday.

The Finnish squad have been cautious in their public statements so far, emphasising that Finland must first and foremost avoid defeat in Cardiff. Respect has been paid to the young, vibrant Welsh team they will face, and with Tim Sparv called up to replace Tainio, it looks as though Finland will try to show a youthful face too. Stuart Baxter has stated that he does not want to include under-21 players in the squad if they don’t have a role to play, so it should be assumed that Sparv will be involved at some point on Saturday. With left winger Joonas Kolkka also out, the Finns could field a very youthful midfield by their standards.

The Finnish squad have been giving interviews about their progress with their various clubs, and memories of Wales. To recap: Forsell remembers scoring against Wales, Shefki Kuqi has defeated Colin’s attempts to force him out at Crystal Palce and will take a coaching course next summer, and Petri Pasanen knows that Wales are a dangerous team and that Bellamy will want to score in front of his home crowd. Eremenko has been talking about the need to avoid defeat, a theme touched upon by Litmanen too.

The Welsh squad are talking about the game as a must win, by contrast, but they have struggled to shift tickets for the match. Just 15,000 have been sold, and the Welsh camp have admitted that the atmosphere will not help their team:

“We have to make our own atmosphere. Much has been said about it. We can’t drag people in the stadium. We have got to do it by results,” said (Wales Assistant manager Roy) Evans.

“We feel we have improved over the years now and we are getting competitive even against the top teams which is decent.

“But like anything you have to start winning games and qualifying for these big competitions.”

Evans added: “It doesn’t help. I have to say that, going out into a massive stadium with a small crowd.

“But we have to be professional about it. The only way we are going to change that is by being successful.”

Baxter has talked a lot about Finland’s identity as a footballing nation, and now is the time when he really has to show his hand. In their last big game Finland failed miserably against Russia, but the time before that an up-tempo and aggressive Finland gave Germany several frights and really should have won. It probably will not pay off to sit back and defend on Saturday, but without Väyrynyn to lead a pressing midfield and break forward quickly it could be hard to reproduce as vibrant a performance as the one Finland put in against Germany last September.

Roman Eremenko has really come of age in central midfield, and the 20 year old will anchor Finland’s attacks for many years to come. He is a very classy player, and should not be moved around to accommodate others – the experiment of playing him out wide against Portugal failed miserably. That him and Heikkinen have solidified their place while older or more established players have been injured is testament to their determination, but the question is always who is going to play around them.

The Finnish defence looks creaky. Up against Bellamy, they will need to use all their experience to nullify the Welsh attack’s pace, and avoid sitting as deep as they did against Russia. That just invited pressure, and allowed Arshavin to exploit the space, gaps and uncertainty in the Finnish defence. Jason Koumas is likely to sit deeper behind Bellamy, and although the Wigan man is not in Arshavin’s league, he will have watched the Russia-Finland game with interest. Wales will start with Evans, Ramsey and Cotterill waiting to come on and run at tired Finnish defenders.

If Litmanen does not start the game, Eremenko Jr could take his place and Sjölund come in on the left wing. Otherwise, this is how I expect Finland to line up:

Jääskeläinen

Pasanen  Tihinen  Hyypiä  Kallio

Johansson Eremenko  Heikkinen  Eremenko Jr

Litmanen

Forssell

Incidentally, Baxter’s return to Britain has prompted some coverage of an unually cosmopolitan character, for a British coach. Here’s one such piece from the Guardian.