Just last night I thought Finnish football had changed considerably as the U-21 team overturned a deficit to come out as victors against Austria, but little did I know. Tonight, Finland went down 3-0 against Russia and to make it Finnish enough, the first two goals were Finland's own goals and Arshavin's strike that settled [. Click to continue reading...

William's report is here The game kicked off with a bit of an embarrassing anthem disruption from the North Curve. They kept singing while the Helsinki Police band were giving a decent rendition of Azərbaycan Respublikasının Dövlət Himni, the Azeri national anthem. They're done great stuff recently, and there was a gushing article in yesterday's Ilta-Sanomat, [. Click to continue reading...

That's what it says at the bottom of the Helsingin Sanomat preview this morning. Normally it offers a way of following the game, on TV or radio, but those options are not available Finland tonight, because nobody has bought the rights. I contacted the Norwegian company that held the rights for the Viking Stavanger game [. Click to continue reading...

Stuart Baxter said that the Israel game would be a dress rehearsal for the Germany match in September, and he was pretty relieved that it went as well as it did. The high spot was Veli Lampi's full debut, as the former TPS right back looked solid and put in some excellent crosses including the [...] Click to continue reading...