Liigacup semi finals

The quarter finals were played last weekend. FC Inter beat TamU 5-3 on penalties, FC Honka beat FF Jaro 2-1, TPS, who won 3-2, avoided a Haka comeback after taking a comfortable 3-0 lead and FC Lahti went through against HJK as Tuomas Haapala scored an own goal in the 87th minute. In the semifinals [...]

Hodgson ‘blasts’ Litmanen

I’m not really sure what Roy Hodgson expected, given Litmanen’s injury record, but he’s very angry that ‘the king’ isn’t playing enough for Fulham:

Hodgson’s team go to rock-bottom Derby in a must-win game tomorrow.
But despite Litmanen’s penalty in the 2-1 defeat in Bulgaria, former Finland boss Hodgson said: “He won’t be in contention because I [...]

Kevin Macdonald: ‘Finland, you are my bitch’

He didn’t really say that, but it’s difficult not to draw that conclusion after he 1) ensured Finland’s best midfielder was too scared to play and 2) scored the winning goal that gives Scotland a glimmer of hope when they should really be dead and buried. I missed large parts of the game, unfortunately, but [...]

Scotland v Finland Under 21 live feed link

You can watch Markku Kanerva’s men here.
Link edited, should work now

Sons of Ben

American football fans have been very busy recently. As there is no promotion or relegation between MLS and USL, the only way for a city to get a top class football team is to buy an MLS share, reputed to cost around $30m. To persuade the kind of cash-rich businessman who might fund such a [...]

Under 21s to face Scotland without Sparv

Tim Sparv is injured, and won’t play against Scotland this Wednesday in Aberdeen. With Perparim Hetemaj already out and his brother Mehmet injured, it leaves Markku Kanerva’s men a bit short in midfield. Mikko Knuutila has an interesting solution on the Ilta Sanomat blog, namely that Roman Eremenko drops down from the senior squad and [...]

A present for Easter, Tamu’s 2003 season review

If anyone ever tells you Ratina is as good a stadium as Tammela, tell them to watch this video.
One day there’ll be top-flight football at Tammela again, it’s just too good a ground to be left in it’s current state.
http://jaatiedostosi.com/Benito/Tampere_United_-_Kausi_2003.zip
It’s quite big and takes a while to download.

Countdown to THE FOOTBALL!! (and please update your links)

This adequately sums up the earth shattering events we will be covering in the next few months, and I really hope you follow everything from Veikkausliiga to Kolmonen (and below) right here at Football in Finland!
If you have a link to the blog on a site you maintain, could you do us a favour and [...]

Colin Burns

Players arrive in Finland from many different countries, for many different reasons and with many different backgrounds. We’ve covered the Zambians at RoPs, but this post is about a success story from last season.
Colin Burns was in a bit of a pickle when he left the University of Massachusetts. mid ranking and ‘developmental’ players in [...]

Bilingualism

As part of the global anglophonic hegemony, I don’t think too much about communicating with people in different languages, but a few things brought this home to me recently. It’s a big issue here (especially if you read Hufvudstadsbladet like I do), as Finland is officially bilingual and around 5% of the population are [...]