The quarter- and semi-finals of Finland’s pre-season knock-out tournament, the Liigacup, took place over the last week and a half while I was busy writing exams. Here’s what happened.

Cup holders Honka were knocked out in the quarter-finals by VPS on the 21st of March thanks a goal from Cheyne Fowler, the only one of the match. The South African Fowler joined VPS this off-season from HJK, who overcame KuPS on the same day in a rematch of last year’s Suomen Cup final. The scoreline there finished 2-1, with HJK’s goals coming from Antti Okkonen and Berat Sadik, who scored with an overhead kick. Miikka Ilo replied for KuPS to give them hope of a comeback, but it didn’t materialise.

Elsewhere, Inter beat Jaro in an exciting match which finished 2-3. Jussi Aalto opened the scoring for the home side Jaro, whose pressing game allowed them to control the opening stages. They made a number of chances but were soon punished for not taking more of them when Inter levelled the match up through Henri Lehtonen. In the second half, Inter opened up a 1-3 lead with goals from Severi Paajanen and Irakli Sirbiladze before Simon Skrabb got one back for Jaro. An exciting finish was assured when Inter had Joni Kauko sent off with a little over twenty minutes to play, but they held on the victory and a place in the semi-finals.

Rounding off the quarter-finals was TPS against MyPa, played on Friday the 23rd of March. Unlike the other three matches, it wasn’t at all a close encounter, as TPS thrashed their visitors 4-0. Aleksi Ristola opened the scoring after just five minutes, the culmination of an excellent move from TPS. Petteri Pennanen scored in the 39th minute, and their second-half goals came from a pair of Finland internationals, Mika Ääritalo and Mikko Hyyrynen.

The first semi-final took place on Wednesday, when TPS took on VPS. Ääritalo continued his good form, scoring two goals in the second half to give the team from Turku a 2-0 victory. Their opponents in the final will be HJK, whose match with Inter went all the way to penalties after finishing 2-2 in 90 minutes. After a goalless first half, Inter took the lead through their Dutch player Pim Bouwman. HJK then scored two in quick succession through Joel Perovuo and Akseli Pelvas before Inter drew level again with a goal, scored by Sirbiladze, that HJK Ville Wallen won’t want to see too many replays of. He appeared to have caught the fairly weak shot with both hands before letting the ball slip through and into the net. There is no extra time in the Liigacup so the match went straight to penalties at the final whistle. HJK held their nerve to win 6-5 in the shoot-out.

So the final will be TPS against HJK. Personally, I would have rather seen a Turku derby than another “home” match for HJK which they will be expected to win, but it should still be an exciting match with TPS in excellent form. The final kicks off at 18:30 on Wednesday the 4th of April at the Sonera Stadium in Helsinki. Tickets can be purchased here.

The group stage of Finland’s domestic pre-season tournament, the Liigacup or league cup, came to an end on Saturday. The line-up for the quarter-finals, to be played on Wednesday the 21st and Friday the 23rd of March, is now confirmed.

Group 1 finished on Wednesday with TPS thrashing Haka 4-0 to give them the best record of all the teams in the group stage (won 5, drawn 0, lost 1). Haka, already two goals down at the interval, had to play most of the second half with ten men after their full-back Antti Ojanperä was sent off on account of two yellow cards. Finland international Mika Ääritalo was amongst the scorers for TPS, whose Turku neighbours FC Inter also made it through to the next round with a victory over Haka, who finished third in the group ahead of IFK Mariehamn but failed to secure one of the places in the next round awarded to the two best third-placed teams in the group stage.

A 2-0 victory for FC Lahti over MyPa in a dead rubber brought group 2 to a close, as Lahti picked up their only win of the tournament but MyPa progressed anyway in third place. The timing of the match, starting one hour after the TPS-Haka game, meant that MyPa knew their place in the next round was secure by the time they started the second half, and somewhat predictably, the match saw no more goals from that point onwards. Poor timing by the competition’s organisers, who are also responsible for running the Veikkausliiga. FC Honka and HJK went through as the top two teams in the group, though neither of them managed to pick up a win in their final round of matches: Honka drew at Lahti while HJK lost 1-3 at MyPa to finish off their inconsistent campaign (won 3, drawn 0, lost 3).

Group 3 went down to the wire, with the fate of three teams resting on the outcome of KuPS vs VPS on Saturday afternoon. The two teams in question both needed at least a point to stay in the competition, while JJK would go through with any result other than a draw. With only the slightest whiff of conspiracy, KuPS and VPS traded goals in a brief spell in the second half before settling on a result of 1-1, which they both knew would be good enough to take them through. Eliminated JJK have a right to feel hard done-by, as they were victims of both the fixture schedule and the closest group of the competition; their points tally of seven would have been good enough to take them through in either of the other two groups. But it wasn’t to be, as KuPS and VPS were joined by group winners Jaro in the quarter-finals.

All the results and standings from the group stage can be found on the Veikkausliiga website (in Finnish).

The quarter-finals shape up like this:

TPS vs MyPa, 18:00 on 23/03/2012
FC Honka vs VPS, 17:00 on 21/03/2012
FF Jaro vs FC Inter, 18:00 on 21/03/2012
HJK vs KuPS, 18:00 on 21/03/2012

Look out for the results in a future update on this blog!

KuPS 1-2 HJK after extra time; 90 minute score 0-0.

Whoever said the King is dead? Helsingin Jalkopalloklubi won their 11th Finnish Cup on Saturday thanks in no small part to a wonderful strike by Jari Litmanen, still going strong at the age of 40.

Earlier in the day, FC Sport of Vaasa had beaten Turun Weikot in the women’s mini-final, contested by the best performing lower division clubs in the cup tournament. Following that, PK-35 of Vantaa beat Ilves in the women’s cup final proper, a match I managed to catch the second half of – you can read my thoughts on it at the end of this article. SJK denied PK-35 two victories in a row by thrashing their reserve team in the men’s mini-final 7-0, the match concluding just in time for the main event, HJK against KuPS.

The Kuopion Palloseura fans had arrived in force, taking up one end of HJK’s home Sonera Stadium and impressively making the lion’s share of the noise both before and after kick-off, despite being outnumbered. Their team was forced into a change after just two minutes, with Joni Nissinen picking up an injury on the half-way line from a seemingly innocuous challenge. He was replaced by Atte Hoivala. KuPS created the first chance of the game shortly afterwards, though, with Dickson Nwakaeme off-target. Mikko Ilo only just missed the goal with a chip over the goalkeeper from a difficult angle after five minutes as KuPS continued their bright start.

Around ten minutes into the match, both sets of supporters engaged in a lengthy call-and-response criticism of the Finnish Football Association, which went “Palloliitto – kulttuurin tappaja”, meaning “Football association, [supporter] culture’s murderer”. They had also brought numerous banners into the stands, as well as a couple of loud flares, and were vocally critical of the FA throughout the match. The perception is that the FA fines clubs arbitrary amounts for things not in their control, while its executives receive bonus payments off the receipts (I’m quite sure that’s untrue), and that they can choose to punish clubs like Tampere United, forced out of existence before this season began, at their discretion without any clear set of rules (that part does seem to be true).

HJK had their first real chance after 17 minutes, with their left winger Erfan Zeneli hitting the bar from just outside the area. He had an excellent game, getting involved in all of HJK’s forward play and also winning free kicks all over the pitch as the KuPS players couldn’t match his technical ability and had to resort to fowling him. He could have scored more than once in the first half: he hit the bar with another shot after winning the ball from a KuPS defender, one of his free kicks went close, and he forced a good save from KuPS keeper Mikko Vilmunen around the half-hour mark.

KuPS weren’t able to get the ball out of their half for a long period, but eventually created a chance with Nwakaeme passing to Alain Bono on the corner of the area. Bono seemed to dive, looking for a penalty, just as he lost control of the ball and it went out of play, but the referee Jouni Hyytiä just told him to get up. The match was 0-0 at half-time but pre-match favourites HJK looked in control.

The Helsinki-based team continued to press at the start of the second half, with towering striker Berat Sadik having the best chance of the opening exchanges. The match entered something of a lull after that, with KuPS content to defend deep and play direct to their wingers when they got the chance. Their right-winger, Juho Nykänen, must have run the furthest of all the players on the pitch over the course of the match, but his effort was frequently in vain as his team’s long balls went over his head and more often than not, out of play.

Only one thing sparked the crowd into life: the introduction of Jari Litmanen, as a substitute for the ineffective Akseli Pelvas, after 80 minutes. Even some of the KuPS fans were applauding the man who was once Finland’s greatest ever football player. Sadly it wasn’t enough to immediately spark the other players into life, with only one real chance being created before the end of normal time, another shot from Berat Sadik, as both teams seemed content to take the match into extra time.

The first half of extra time was pretty dull too, with no really notable incident. Both of the wingers who had impressed me – Zeneli and Nykänen – were substituted by their respective managers after presumably running out of energy. It was only after 105 minutes that the match got really exciting. It was a shame that, after a promising first half, it took so long to get there, but ask any of the 5000+ fans in the stadium and I’m sure they’d say it was worth the wait.

In the 108th minute, a high ball from Rami Hakanpää, another player to have impressed me with his solid play in central defence, was won in the air by the 1.93m Berat Sadik. It fell towards Jari Litmanen, playing in a second striker’s role, on the edge of the penalty area. After one bounce, he controlled the ball with his thighs and struck a sweet volley (or whatever you want to call it) that flew into the far corner of the KuPS net, surprising the goalkeeper Vilmunen whose dive was in vain. 19 years after his only other appearance and goal in the Finnish Cup final, the King did it again. Every time I think he is about to retire, he pulls something like that out of the bag. If you remember him playing at the top of his game for Ajax in the mid-nineties, you might enjoy the nostalgia of watching a video of his latest goal. That video also has the other goals from the match.

KuPS pushed forwards, as they had to, looking for an equaliser that would take the match to penalties, but they paid the price for it. Eight minutes after Litmanen’s goal, the precocious Alexander Ring slotted the ball between Vilmunen’s legs for HJK’s second goal, after being fed by Berat Sadik once more. Ring signed a contract extension with HJK after the match, and they will want to keep hold of him for as long as possible, as he is clearly a very promising player who has already played three times for the senior national team at the age of 20. In a way, one could think of him as being a new model of Litmanen; they play in almost the same position, they combined very nicely on Saturday after Litmanen had come on, and Ring is exactly half Litmanen’s age. I’m not saying he will go on to achieve the same things as Litmanen, but he will almost certainly be an integral part of Finland’s team in the future.

KuPS rallied after going 2-0 down and grabbed one goal back right on the end of the 120 minutes, Markus Joenmäki controlling a cross well and poking past Ville Wállen, in goal for HJK. There was only one extra minute to be played, however, and it wasn’t enough time to find an equaliser, despite KuPS winning a corner and throwing all eleven of their players, Vilmunen included, into the penalty area. At the final whistle, HJK had won 2-1 and were the new Finnish Cup holders, after coming second last year. As part of their celebrations, they passed the trophy into the fans in the home terrace, which was a nice touch as those fans had had to put up with half a dozen security guards surrounding them for the whole match.

As well as Litmanen, another person in the headlines after the match was Antti Muurinen, the former Finland national team coach. He is on course to win his first league and cup double as a manager, with HJK about as close to winning the Finnish league as Sebastian Vettel is to winning the Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship. He also signed a contract extension after the cup win. He is a very successful manager in Finland, but I wonder whether he will go abroad at any stage of his career? His reputation may be tarnished from his time as head of the national team, when he had Finland’s best ever generation of players (Litmanen and Sami Hyypiä, most famously, but also players like Joonas Kolkka, Hannu Tihinen, Jonatan Johansson and Antti Niemi), but couldn’t manage to qualify for any tournaments and eventually lost the faith of Finnish supporters. At the age of 57, his managerial career is far from over, and I wouldn’t rule out him returning to the national team at some point in the future.

As promised, my thoughts on the women’s cup final, which finished PK-35 2-0 Ilves. I had no expectations of what the match was going to be like when I arrived at the ground in time for the second half, and I was excited to see my first live women’s football match. It was 1-0 at that time, and the scoreboard statistics showed that the team from Vantaa had had 9 shots on target, their opponents none. The second half followed a similar pattern, with PK-35 easily the stronger team. Their lead allowed them to be casual, however, and the match sunk to a very low standard after about sixty minutes. Both teams tended to just clear the ball upfield whenever possible, without checking to see if a player was there. The players were fine technically – certainly much better than I have ever been – but seemed to lack vision and awareness on the ball, which was frustrating. For the last fifteen minutes, I started counting how many passes either team could put together. The record was nine, but that included two backpasses; the record without involving the goalkeeper was three passes without giving the ball away, which was extremely poor. The goalkeepers were no better; one looked very unfit and the other, having come on as a substitute, spilled a regulation shot that allowed PK-35 to score their second goal right at the end.

I don’t want to sound like I’m having a go at the players – I know they work very hard and receive virtually no pay or media coverage – but I was just a little disappointed. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, given that even the men’s game is something of a minority sport in this country. Only a few hundred fans bothered to turn up to the women’s final despite having tickets for it automatically, as it was bundled with the men’s final ticket. The situation for the women’s game is an even more extreme version of the causal loop that the men’s game faces: poor quality play means fans aren’t interested, which in turn means less revenue for the clubs, which means less money to spend on developing higher-quality players. Attending the match was an interesting experience though, and I’d be happy to go again next year.

I’ll be taking a short break from blogging to concentrate on an important school exam which is coming up this week. Look out for a round-up of the week’s stories at the weekend.

Runaway league leaders Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi (HJK) meet Kuopion Palloseura (KuPS) in the final of the Finnish Cup on Saturday. Here’s a look at how both teams got to the final, and plenty more.

HJK entered the tournament at the seventh round, the latest stage at which new teams joined the competition, due to reaching the semi-finals of the pre-season League Cup, where they were knocked out by Tampere United on penalties. Their seventh round fixture was an away match against Seinäjoen Jalkapallokerho (SJK), a team from the third division of Finnish league football who had come through three rounds to face them, impressively beating FC KooTeePee (KTP) from one division above them in the sixth round. HJK won 0-4, with goals coming from Rami Hakanpää, Teemu Pukki, Berat Sadik and Jarno Parikka.

In the eighth round, the quarter-finals, HJK were paired with Myllykosken Palloseura (MyPa), for another away match. MyPa had been in the tournament from the fifth round onwards, but lost 1-2 to HJK, whose goals came from Erfan Zeneli and Sebastian Mannström.

HJK’s first home match came in the semi-finals, where their opponents were FC Lahti. Lahti, of the second division, had come from the fourth round to reach the semi-finals, beating Veikkausliiga team Turun Palloseura (TPS) along the way. The match could have been Jari Litmanen’s first appearance against his hometown club since he left them after their relegation from the Veikkausliiga the previous season, but he was not selected for the match. HJK won it 3-0 with goals from Jarno Parikka, Valtteri Moren and Berat Sadik.

KuPS started one round earlier than HJK, in the sixth round, because they had reached the quarter-finals of the League Cup, where they were knocked out by none other than their Saturday opponents. They kicked off with a 0-2 win at Ekenäs Idrottsförening (EIF), a team from the third division who had made it all the way from the first round, beating HIFK of the division above them in the fifth round. I’d like to tell you who scored, but that information doesn’t seem to exist. I searched the whole internet.

In round seven, KuPS won 2-6 away at Idrottsförening Gnistan (IF Gnistan), and again I can’t tell you who scored, though at least that saves me a bit of typing, as it was a high-scoring match. Gnistan had come through three rounds to be there.

At the quarter-final stage, KuPS had their first real challenge, against fellow top-tier side FC Haka in their home town of Valkeakoski. Haka had started off in the fifth round, where they surprisingly beat Inter Turku on penalties away from home. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that Samuli Kaivonurmi netted twice for the away side.

In their semi-final, KuPS faced up to Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Mariehamn (IFK Mariehamn – not surprising that they use their shortened name), in their fourth away match of the competition. Nigerian striker Dickson Nwakaeme scored two goals and Miikka Ilo grabbed one, as they secured their place in the final with a 0-3 victory.

As I mentioned above, KuPS are yet to play a home match in this year’s tournament, and they are effectively playing an away match on Saturday as well, as the final takes place at HJK’s home stadium, the Sonera Stadium in Helsinki. The final has been held there every year since 2002, so it is just coincidence that HJK are in the final, though Finland’s most successful club have featured in four of the finals since they were moved to their home stadium, so some could view it as an unfair disadvantage.

HJK are the overwhelming favourites to win the trophy, due to their huge superiority over the rest of the league in this season’s Veikkausliiga, where they have all but secured the championship, as well as their home advantage. KuPS are currently ninth in the league table, some 34 points off the pace after 25 matches. At the time of writing, NordicBet’s odds for the match result after 90 minutes are 1.38 for a HJK win, 4.70 for a draw, and 7.50 for a KuPS win. By my calculations that gives HJK about a two-thirds chance of winning, which I’d say is accurate.

It’s interesting to note that HJK and KuPS played a league match in Helsinki just a couple of weeks ago, on the 12th of September. That match finished 1-0 to the home side, with a goal from Berat Sadik. Here are the starting XIs from that match, which should give some indication of how the teams will line up tomorrow (note that the positions might not be 100% accurate, but the players are):

Also taking place tomorrow is the Women’s Finnish Cup final, which will be contested by Pallokerho-35 Vantaa (PK-35) and FC Ilves, along with two “mini-finals”, one for each gender, comprising the best-performing teams from the lower divisions. SJK, mentioned above for their match against HJK, will play PK-35′s reserve team PK-35/VJS in the men’s event, while Turun Weikot (TuWe) and FC Sport of Vaasa meet in the women’s event. The same ticket permits entry to both the men’s and women’s finals, while the mini-finals are free to watch on the playing field adjacent to the stadium. The full schedule for tomorrow is as follows:

• 9.30 Women’s mini-final TuWe – FC Sport, Töölö playing field
• 11.30 Women’s final, PK-35 Vantaa – Ilves, Sonera Stadium
• 13.30 Men’s mini-final, PK-35/VJS – SJK, Töölö playing field
• 15.30 Men’s final, KuPS – HJK, Sonera Stadium

I really like that there are four events happening on the same day. I would probably not otherwise go to, or even hear about, the women’s final, but as the ticket for the day includes entry to it, I can watch it for no extra cost. It makes it feel like the day is a proper, inclusive celebration of Finnish domestic football, and I’m looking forward to it. If you can’t go, you will at least be able to find a full report of the day here on Sisu!