Showing posts with label tulos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tulos. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Tulos: Adieu, Adu and other things you may have missed

The latest update on what's been going on in Finnish football - it's been a busy fortnight or so.

Finland's crucial Euro 2016 qualifier against Northern Ireland took place on Sunday in Belfast - unfortunately it ended in a 2-1 defeat, pretty much ending any hopes of qualification for next summer's tournament in France. Two goals from Kyle Lafferty were the difference, while an injury-time consolation from sub Berat Sadik made no difference. It was an inept performance filled with errors and minimal threat posed. The 'Mixu Out' brigade are in full swing, even the FA's line that he will remain in place until the end of qualifying appears to be very much 'by-the-numbers'. The Hungary match in June could be interesting...



The big transfer news was a rather large surprise - former United States international Freddy Adu signed for KuPS! Yep, that's the same Freddy Adu who was billed as the "next Pele" scoring an MLS goal for DC United aged 14. Since then, it's all been a little sad, KuPS are now his eleventh club following spells in Brazil, Greece, Turkey and Serbia. Needless to say, my friends in Kuopio are expecting plenty of interest and shopping, with a press conference this Thursday set to be quite the party. I've been told that Freddy chose Finland in order to escape the circus and concentrate on football...

Image via KuPS.fi

Atletico Malmi's Suomen Cup fairytale ended at the hands of FC Lahti in round five. The team who finished third in last season's top division won 2-0 with goals in the first half, and while they dominated the stats, they were resisted further goals. Malmi can now concentrate on their Kolmonen season, will another promotion be on the cards?

Malmi and Lahti players join together

Finland U21s played twice last weekend, winning matches against Kazahkstan (3-0) and Luxembourg (4-1). FC Inter striker Vahid Hambo scored in both games.

I did an interview with Tero Koskela of the Finnish Player's Union (JPY), where we talked about various issues facing footballers along with the role of the organisation. My next interview is with Veikkausliiga marketing executive Risto Oksanen, which will be online in the next week or so.

Finland midfielder Tim Sparv featured in an article by Dutch journalists about the innovative management behind his club FC Midtjylland. The club are owned by Matthew Benham, who also owns English club Brentford. The system of player recruitment is based on statistics, but Sparv was highlighted as the "no-stats all star" due to his reading of the game.


As expected, Finland captain Niklas Moisander signed a pre-contract with Serie A club Sampdoria. While it had been rumoured for some time, it was still big news, although the announcement got more interest due to the eccentric club president Massimo Ferrero in full swing...



Other things probably happened but I can't remember... I did book flights to Finland in June, at the moment looking at matches with Atletico Malmi, SJK, KuPS, Union Plaani and possibly HIFK.
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Monday, March 16, 2015

Tulos: Pukki, season tickets and Britpop

Another slow fortnight or so since the last Tulos. Here's a quick summary for those of you who have been away...

A superb offer for fans of teams in the western division of the Kakkonen in 2015. Season ticket holders at either of the three clubs in the post are also able to attend the home games of the others, so over forty matches for the price of one season ticket, as little as 50 Euros in some cases.

Post by Escape To Suomi.


Teemu Pukki knows how to time things - 48 hours before the announcement of the next Finland squad (for the Northern Ireland game), he scores for Brøndby in their 2-0 win over OB.


With more speculation in England about the introduction of academy teams into professional leagues, I wrote for Put Niels In Goal about how the teams fare in Finland, featuring the Suomen Cup ties between teams from the same club... Featuring the joint team huddle of HIFK/3 and HIFK/4 (below).


Finland's FIFA ranking continues to drop, now just five places above their previous worst of September 2012.

The latest ETS interview was with Finland ladies midfielder Annika Kukkonen, who gave some excellent answers relating to gay players, sexism in the sport, and Gangnam Style...


Post by Escape To Suomi.


The latest draw for the Suomen Cup was made on Monday by Jari Litmanen - he should be made to make every draw, he pulled out some absolute stunners. TPS v Inter and JanPa/Atletico Malmi v FC Lahti are particular highlights. One big shock result of round four was KPV defeating top division side Jaro 3-0.

Fifth round draw - looking forward to it already

Last update is a bit of an ego boost - I'm very honoured to have been included in a list of the top football blogs to follow in 2015, by Left-Wing Soccer. There are some wonderful writers on there, and they're all well worth a few minutes of your time.
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Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Tulos: Cup draws, interviews and Japan

Been a fairly slow few weeks in the Finnish football world since the last update. Part of the joy of a summer league perhaps... Anyway, here is a little recap.

Sexypöxyt celebrate their 30th anniversary this year

The Suomen Cup fourth round draw took place on Monday, pitching some potentially very interesting ties. TamU-K will host IFK Mariehamn, PEPO play KuPS and Sexypöxyt will play Gnistan. Meanwhile, our partner club Atletico Malmi defeated NuPS to reach the fourth round for the first time, they will play the winner of JanPa and Jomela IK. I'm still waiting to hear on the availability of Malmi replica jerseys.


I've spoken to Dani Hatakka of KuPS and Richie Dorman of SJK, who were both very interesting and pretty open about life in Veikkausliiga. Dani spoke about his scoring prowess for the Finland U21 side, while Richie was grateful to Finnish football for the chance to become a professional, having spent time at Blackburn as a youngster. Sent a few emails for further interviews, hopefully will have some more soon.

HJK's attempts at world domination continue with rapid speed - they announced the signings of Japanese international forward Mike Havanaar and Swedish goalkeeper Daniel Örlund, who join fellow Japanese Atom Tanaka and former Nottingham Forest midfielder Guy Moussi. HJK CEO Aki Riihilahti spoke to MTV3 about the club's ambitions - while admitting that they had sold more Atom shirts in a week than any other player sold in the whole of 2014, while over forty thousand people watched highlights of the win over RoPS, while the usual figure is in the hundreds.
Jari Litmanen's 44th birthday passed by on February 20th with the usual fanfare and ticker tape. He keeps his usual low profile, making personal appearances in pubs etc.

MYPA appear to have folded in their present form, the club administrators have applied for bankruptcy. While it's likely that the various junior clubs will continue in some form, it's a shame that over-spending and poor financial management have enabled to club to wither. Watch this space for future news.

The latest Eremenko talent, sixteen-year-old Sergei, scored twice for Jaro in their Liigacup defeat to SJK. He has already spent time training with Internazionale's youth set-up, while those ITK lot reckon he could potentially be as good as brothers Roman and Alexei.

Anyway that's it for now - I'm trying to push the ETS Facebook page a bit more these days, so make sure you like that for some more slow-time updates. Twitter is so flimsy and instant...
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Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Tulos: Litmanen, licences and flare fines

It's been another eccentric week in Finnish football - in case you missed any of it, here is a summary.

It's been sixteen years since Mikael Forssell made his Chelsea debut

A Helsinki court found that a fan who threw a flare during the Finland v Spain match in 2013, which cost the Finnish FA a fine of €7000, is liable to pay the fine. Needless to say the majority of the public has sided with the fan, while there have been suggestions of crowd-funding in order to pay the fine on their behalf.
Jari Litmanen has been keeping his fitness up with Estonian club Nomme Kalju - he does spend a lot of time in Estonia, while it's more likely that it is just keeping fit for further legend games. Doesn't stop the speculation about a comeback!
Post by Jorge Rodrigues.
We finally had confirmation about the line-up of the 2015 Ykkönen (second tier). The ten teams competing are AC Oulu, EIF, FC Haka, FC Jazz, JJK, MYPA, PK-35, PS Kemi, TPS and VIFK. Strangely, Atlantis were denied a place due to the FA believing their player development systems weren't up to scratch. Atlantis of course were the side that turned a reluctant sixth-division forward into a 40-goal striker last year. Weird.
Former Jaro midfielder Hendrik Helmke, who had moved to Iran in December, was released from his contract after suffering a knee injury and has signed for Egyptian club Al-Ahly.
In some evidence that goalscorers don't necessarily translate into other places - 2012 top scorer Irakli Sirbiladze has left Inter Turku and signed for KuPS, while 2013 goal king Tim Väyrynen has signed an 18-month loan with Viktoria Köln, still remaining on the books of Borussia Dortmund B.

Finally, I spoke to Finland and Real Madrid Castilla forward Eero Markkanen about a variety of topics, ranging from Grand Theft Auto to wrestling with Perparim Hetemaj.
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