World Cup qualifying - group I for impossble?

So it begins again. Just two months after the end of a surprisingly good Euro 2012, qualifying begins for the 2014 World Cup, to be held in Brazil. This time there are nine European groups competing for those spots in the Finals, and of the fifty-three teams involved, perhaps half will have a reasonable shout of getting there. Finland is not in that half.

The Finns are in Group I, with World and European champions Spain, recent World and European champions France, and Belarus and Georgia. A five team group has it's pros and cons, but for a team which has just dropped twenty-four places in the FIFA rankings, the lack of playing two extra competitive games could prove dangerous in the long run. Coach Mixu Paatelainen has stated his goal is to produce a team which can potentially qualify for the bloated Euro 2016, but they'll do well to rack up more than a handful of points this time around.

 Paatelainen knows the size of the task

Finland's last match was an entertaining 3-3 draw with Northern Ireland in Belfast, and it wasn't fun for those fans of quality football, save for the third Finnish goal (a lovely free kick from Përparim Hetemaj). Their first qualifier is at home to a France side yet again dealing with the fall-out after a Euro 2012 which promised much, but ended up with the same in-fighting, strops and player bans.

 The Finns celebrate the third goal in Belfast

With no minnow (or is it Finland?) in the group, points against rivals are crucial, and under new manager Didier Deschamps, now may be a good time to take on the French. France lost their first qualifier for Euro 2012 at home to Belarus, while in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup they lost to Austria, and only just beat the Faroe Islands.

There have been several suggestions in recent years in support of a pre-qualifying competition amongst the lower-ranked nations, where the winners get the chance to compete with the larger nations. Clearly this was aimed to reduce the games between, for example, Spain and San Marino, but how else for the lower ranked teams to meet these opponents?

The French visit Helsinki this evening (Spain visit in September 2013), and while the odds on an upset are slim, Finland need to play the big teams in competitive games to realistically improve their FIFA rankings, especially after the Baltic Cup debacle (the summer matches against Latvia and Estonia were deemed not to count towards rankings as the fourth official was not FIFA accredited).

 Try telling Latvia that the Baltic Cup doesn't count...

The formula for working out ranking points is based as follows:

M (match result, W/L/D) x I (importance of match, eg friendly or qualifier) x T (ranking of opposing team, worked out as 200 minus their current position) x C (their confederation, eg UEFA).

A victory over France tonight would therefore be worth 3 x 2.5 x 185 x 1 = 1387.5, compared to the 99 points they earned for the draw with Northern Ireland. Results like this will be vital if they're to get decent seedings for future tournaments. Their 2012 point average is currently 125, yet the soon to disappear 2008 average is 228 so they're likely to drop much further if they get a bad start in this campaign.

The Finnish fans I speak to will be watching the France game with hope rather than expectation, and even a point will be a good start (worth 387.5 ranking points). But the group is a marathon not a sprint, and we'll see how a competitive Paatelainen side fares.

Veikkausliiga week 24 - Three adrift at the bottom

Next season's guaranteed new team have been confirmed (RoPS have won the Ykkonen at a canter, they're currently seventeen points clear with four games to go), and one would imagine there would be an almighty battle to avoid being replaced by them. Well, at the moment the battle is more like three moody lazy teenagers, hoping that their two mates are lazier than them… The teams who are getting further and further adrift at the bottom of the top division are KuPS, Haka and Jaro. They have nine games (Haka have eight) left to get enough points to avoid relegation or the play-off match against the second-placed team, who are currently SJK.

This weekend's fixtures involving the three clubs all took place on Sunday, with Jaro hosting MYPA, and Haka travelling to JJK, with KuPS visiting IFK Mariehamn. Bottom side Jaro were already two points behind Haka with a game in hand, and things started badly with Pekka Sihvola opening the scoring in the 29th minute. Sihvola has now scored eight goals in his last five league games, and the scoreline quickly became 2-0 and 3-0 towards the end. Jaro remain bottom, and luckily Haka's attempts at apparently playing rush goalie are keeping them ahead on goal difference. Jaro have lost their last five matches, and they won't be expecting much change from their visit to Helsinki in their next match on September 14th.

Highlights of Jaro 0-3 MYPA

Haka visited Jyväskylä and carried on where they've left off in recent games - they shipped five goals, seventeen in their last three, and have got one point from the last twenty-four available. Already missing Obi Metzger after his red card against Lahti, they went into the interval 1-0 down. But after the break, they conceded three goals in fourteen minutes, including a brace from Mikko Innanen. An injury time goal sealed a 5-0 victory, and has now pretty much confirmed JJK's participation in next season's competition. Haka meanwhile have a goal difference of -25, two goals worse off than Jaro. They may come to regret their recent thrashings come October.

 Benno Haslian celebrates JJK's fifth goal

The other struggling side in action were KuPS, visiting Mariehamn. They had picked up a bit of form after their European exit, and had won their Suomen Cup semi-final in midweek, but were facing a team who still had distant title ambitions. That they lasted until the 78th minute without conceding a goal is a credit, but in the end substitute Bosnian Ermin Gadžo scored twice, and KuPS went back to Kuopio with nothing other than relief that their nearest rivals all lost by greater margins.

Highlights of IFK Mariehamn 2-0 KuPS

The remaining matches between the three teams are as follows: Jaro v KuPS on Fri 14th Sept, Haka v Jaro on Sun 23rd Sept, KuPS v Haka on Sun 7th Oct (subject to change). These matches will have huge bearings on the final positions, and we can hope that they don't end up as damp squibs.

 The bottom three as it stands

The mid-table Friday night match between Lahti and Honka was actually the most entertaining game of the weekend. The visitors finally learned their Cup final opponents the previous night, and went ahead through another Tim Väyrynen goal after six minutes. It was the 19-year-old's tenth goal of the season, nine of which have opened the scoring, a fantastic record. Unfortunately for him and his Espoo-based teammates, Lahti responded with three goals in the second half. Recent signing Ariel Ngueukam scored twice in three minutes, and Drilon Shala scored a third goal, which proved crucial. A late consolation goal in injury time from Honka's Antti Mäkijärvi meant little, and Lahti won 3-2. It was Lahti's third win in four, and leaves them on the outskirts of the race for the Europa League. Honka are ninth, and while it's highly unlikely that they'd be drawn into the relegation battle, they have little else other than the cup final against KuPS in four weeks time.

Highlights of Lahti 3-2 Honka

I suppose the title race itself is what the people want. Sunday's early match was between the teams in second and third place, with TPS hosting champions HJK. HJK had played an entertaining 3-3 draw with Athletic Bilbao on Thursday, finally confirming their elimination from Europe 9-3 on aggregate. This match was virtually over by half-time, first half goals from Mika Väyrynen (again, a tidy chip over the keeper) and Juho Mäkelä saw HJK take a 2-0 lead, although TPS did have chances. A 90th minute goal from Santeri Mäkinen merely served to maintain a decent goal difference lead for TPS. HJK are now three points ahead on 43 points, TPS are third on 40, level with Mariehamn but with the superior GD.

 Highlights of TPS 1-2 HJK

The final match kicked off on Monday evening with leaders Inter knowing that they would need a win to reclaim their four point lead, and win they did. A routine 2-0 victory over VPS took them to 47 points, with Irakli Sirbiladze celebrating his Georgian call-up with goals in each half. The striker is now top scorer with 13 goals, and will be sure to add more in the remaining nine league games.

Next week sees a break for international football, with Finland opening their qualification for the 2014 World Cup with a home match against France, followed by a game between some Finnish legends and some former international stars, billed as a Respect match. Finland's team features Jari Litmanen, Sami Hyypiä and Joonas Kolkka, and will be a chance for the fans to see their heroes one more time.