Euro 2020: Finland finally take a seat at international football’s top table
When Finland secured qualification for their first major football tournament, fans could be seen climbing into fountains naked, and letting off flares into the dark skies of the cold Helsinki night.
More than 18 months later, a long-awaited debut lies ahead at Euro 2020 against Denmark in Copenhagen on Saturday.
In some ways, it is remarkable that the nation which has produced Champions League winners like former Liverpool captain Sami Hyypia and Ajax legend Jari Litmanen, has made it this far without being seen on the top stage in men’s international football.
Ice hockey has traditionally enjoyed more prominence. Just last weekend, the Finnish team took home silver medals after defeat to Canada in the final of this year’s International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship.
From a football perspective, the Eagle Owls or ‘Huuhkajat’ as the team is known, have also endured their fair share of bad luck. Well-travelled manager Roy Hodgson took them to within inches of qualifying for Euro 2008, but sneaking the away win required in the final match against Portugal proved too big an ask.
Prior to that, Finland conceded a devastating stoppage-time own goal against Hungary that saw their opponents make it through to the 1998 World Cup qualification play-offs instead. The word ’Hungarian’ has even been used by pundits to describe the underachieving Finns ending a match badly.
“You don’t get that nervous feeling like when you watch Finland play,” says Helsinki-based fan Jonathan Bensky.
“I was there in the years when we grew up watching Jari Litmanen. We used to always go to the Olympic Stadium, my dad, my grandfather and I. We usually lost. Sometimes we played well and still lost.”
Finnish Football Show podcast host Rich Nelson adds: “A lot of people talk about the players from that era and refer to them as a ‘golden generation’. The main difference between then and now is that this group are very much a team.”
Current manager Markku Kanerva is a former defender and teacher who won 59 caps for his country. He is modest and determined in line with the deep-rooted, stoic national character which Finns call ‘sisu’.
That’s not to disappoint anyone picturing national stereotypes and imagining some sort of ‘heavy metal football’ — perhaps playing the Eurovision-winning Lordi frontman in goal would scare off opposition strikers. In reality, Kanerva has crafted a defensively-solid style which relies on Norwich City striker Teemu Pukki being clinical front.
The talismanic forward’s goals recently fired the Canaries to Premier League promotion for the second time in three years. The 31-year-old went through a purple patch between February and April, scoring 17 goals in 15 appearances for club and country. He now has 30 international goals, and is a brace shy of Litmanen’s all-time record.
10 of that tally were scored in qualifying to get the nation to this tournament. Fredrik Jensen was the next highest with two. Depending on how the next month goes, there will surely be some quarters claiming that Pukki is Finland’s greatest ever footballer.
“The exploits of some of the players at club level has probably elevated them,” says Nelson. Hyypia also won two FA Cups, Football League Cups and UEFA Super Cups at Liverpool, and Litmanen, who was under-used during a short spell at Anfield, also played for Barcelona.
“If Pukki scores a decisive goal — if it seals a draw or seals a win — that would be as important to Finnish football as Litmanen winning a Champions League, or anything else.”
Other players likely to impress include Bayer Leverkusen goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky and energetic box-to-box Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara.
Alongside Kamara is the outspoken Tim Sparv. Undoubtedly one of few international captains who writes their own blog, the 34-year-old came through Southampton’s academy with England’s Theo Walcott.
What awaits them are three Group B ties against Denmark, Belgium and Russia and you can guarantee the Finns will give their all in the hope that anything can happen.
“It will be the miracle of all miracles in Finnish sport if we achieve something in this tournament and you will see Finns going crazy,” says Bensky, referencing the ‘Pohjoiskarre’ or ‘northern side’ hardcore faithful which would usually sit inside the Olympic Stadium.
“They just started this thing of ‘let’s make some noise, Finns don’t have to be quiet’. They just love being there and taking their shirts off in minus 10 degrees.”
Last November, they stunningly beat world champions France 2–0 in a friendly game in Paris. Brentford striker Marcus Forss and Cyprus-based midfielder Onni Valakari — the son of former Derby and Motherwell player Simo — both scored on their debuts.
“No one saw it coming,” adds Nelson regarding the shock victory over a side featuring Paul Pogba, Olivier Giroud and Moussa Sissoko. “It was a fairly strong France team and to be honest, a reserve Finland team.”
If that result is anything to go by, and as Saturday’s Euro 1992-winning opponents Denmark will agree, surprises are certainly possible.
