DODGING A BULLET: FINLAND 1 ARMENIA 0
By William Moore
Helsingin Sanomat, Finland
Nov 16 2006
Oh well, it’s the points that count, I suppose
First, the good news. Finland beat Armenia 1-0 in an almost-full
Finnair Stadium on Wednesday evening, and regardless of the outcome of
the other two games in Qualifying Group A of the 2008 UEFA European
Championships, Finland will head the group table over the winter
recess.
Some more good news: Finland have a world-class goalkeeper.
Without the timely intervention of Bolton’s Jussi Jaaskelainen on at
least three occasions, the headline at the top of this piece would
have been somewhat different, and there would probably only have been
bad news to report.
In part thanks to the estimable Mr. Jaaskelainen’s efforts, there is
also the good news that Finnish crowds now know rather better how
to sing – rather than simply yelling "Suomi, Suomi" with rythmical
clapping accompaniment. The crowd on Wednesday night did their
best. Would that the team had matched them in intensity and strength
of purpose.
And so to the bad news. To put it kindly, this was a pretty lacklustre
performance, even for an injury-hit side.
If it were not for the incontrovertible fact that Finland have eleven
points and Armenia have just the one, it would have been very hard to
tell these two teams apart. For lengthy periods of the second half at
least, the Armenians looked like the contenders for group leadership
while the Finns looked, well, the word "shambolic" comes to mind.
After the first ten minutes, in which Mika Nurmela’s head got the
final touch to a move that was started by a fierce parried shot from
Mika Vayrynen and then laid back off the rebound by Jonatan Johansson,
there was precious little for the 9,400 fans to get excited about.
The Finnish midfield was shapeless, and most attacks (with the notable
exception of the one that led to the goal) doggedly went down the
right. Few passes inside the final third of the field found home –
even on an artificial turf pitch that was light-years better than
that for the 0-0 draw at the reverse fixture in Yerevan last month –
and the absence of a player with vision was palpable.
Jari Litmanen may be in the twilight of his career, and he may have
lost more than the proverbial "yard of pace", but he still has enough
footballing nouse between his ears to run rings around the sort of
opposition Finland faced on Wednesday.
His replacement (Litmanen was regrettably again unavailable through
injury) Alexei Eremenko Jr. has a great deal of skill on the ball,
he has been achieving great things for FC Saturn in Moscow, and he
may yet develop into an international player of real stature, but he
did little last night to suggest he has the wherewithal to step into
Litmanen’s shoes just yet.
All too often, he charged forwards in route-one style, tried to take
on two or three defenders, and then hit a pass that would have had
multi-million-euro stars struggling to connect with it. It was all made
so very difficult, when the recipe was to "keep it simple, stupid".
This was the problem of the first half, after the 8th minute goal.
Finland kept a lid on things, and didn’t really look like conceding
a goal, but then again they hardly looked like scoring again either,
because they never held the ball up long enough in midfield to get
anyone into a decent scoring position. Haste makes waste.
If the first half was a chapter of missed opportunities to create
opportunities to score, the second half was even worse. Whatever the
Finns’ British-born coach Roy Hodgson said to them at the interval,
they lost the plot.
By sixty minutes the Armenians had gained enough in self-confidence
that they actually posed a greater threat than their hosts.
Two of the three aforementioned timely interventions by Jussi
Jaaskelainen came in the second period. Once he smothered a shot
from Levon Pachajyan after the Armenian had nutmegged Toni Kallio on
the right-hand edge of the box, and then five minutes from time he
produced a brilliant reflex stop after Pachajyan set up substitute
Aram Hakobyan with the goal at his mercy.
Karen Dokhoyan also brought out the best in the Finnish keeper
after only five minutes with a flighted header from distance that
Jaaskelainen did well to steer past the post for a corner.
The very fact that so much has been written about Jussi Jaaskelainen
and the three Armenian efforts should indicate that the visitors
ultimately came closer to grabbing a share of the points than Finland
did to getting a second goal to kill off the contest.
In fairness, the disjointed and at time hapless work of the Finns
in the second half was partly caused by the loss of Mika Vayrynen at
half-time. He picked up a knock on his thigh just before the interval
and was replaced by Jari Ilola.
The defence was for the most part solid, although the infection of
giving the ball away when it was least helpful seemed to be spreading
down to the basement as the final whistle approached.
But I suppose in the end all that the record-books will show is that
Finland won, that they collected three valuable points, and that they
are heading the group table for the next four months. Few will bother
to reflect on the way in which the result was achieved – especially
if these points make a difference when it comes to qualification from
Group A.
However, there’s the rub. Any half-decent, organised side would have
cut through Armenia like a hot knife through butter, especially after
grabbing an early nerve-settling goal, and Finland will have to play
much better outfits than this and still keep winning if they wish to
go to Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland.
On the strength of this performance at least, that will be a very
tall order.
The returns to duty of a fit Litmanen, a Mikael Forssell who has
rediscovered a taste for scoring goals, the hard-working Teemu Tainio
and Aki Riihilahti in midfield, and also the contribution of Petri
Pasanen at right-back are devoutly to be wished when things get going
again next March.
The first four were already ruled out of last night’s encounter,
and Pasanen apparently picked up a last-minute ankle problem. A small
footballing country like Finland does not have the depth of players
to cope with a long injury list, as Roy Hodgson’s predecessors know
only too well.
Finally, a bit more (relatively) good news. Poland defeated Belgium in
Brussels by the only goal. Since the Finns have already disposed of
Poland 3-1 away, this result indirectly helped to blunt the Belgian
threat to Finnish hopes of qualifying, even though a draw would have
possibly been the optimum outcome for us.
The Poles are clearly an improving force – they beat Portugal at home
last month – so it is nice to have got that difficult away fixture
out of the way successfully.
Although naturally anything can happen before November 2007, the smart
money would probably suggest that World Cup semi-finalists Portugal
will qualify from Group A, leaving the second available place to be
scrapped over by Poland, Belgiúm, Serbia, and Finland.
Finland next travel to Azerbaijan in March 2007 for another awkward
long-distance away game, and then they host Serbia and Belgium in
quick succession at the beginning of June. All three games will be
critical, and will ask a lot more of the Finns than we saw them give
on Wednesday.
Finland’s experienced coach Roy Hodgson has stated earlier that he
is confident there will be setbacks for the more fancied teams in
the large group, with the minnows stealing points here and there and
complicating matters.
In that sense, Finland dodged a bullet against Armenia. But only just.
Finland: Jussi Jaaskelainen Toni Kallio Sami Hyypia (captain)
Hannu Tihinen Ari Nyman Joonas Kolkka Markus Heikkinen Mika Vayrynen
(46. Jari Ilola) Mika Nurmela Aleksei Eremenko jr (88. Shefki Kuqi)
Jonatan Johansson
Head Coach: Roy Hodgson
Referee: Craig Thomson (Scotland) Attendance: 9,445 (capacity 10,770)
Weather: Chilly (+3°C) but dry.
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