Cities tend to have a distinguishing feature, something that sets them apart from their rivals. Venice has canals, Barcelona offers weird looking Gaudi architecture, New York has sky scrapers. In Espoo - second biggest municipality in Finland, and home to Nokia headquarters - the main feature of the landscape is the car park. Click to continue reading...

Honka v TamU This is a rehearsal for the Cup Semi final on Wednesday. TamU have nothing to play for in the league, and a big game against the same opponents on Wednesday. On the other hand, they probably won't want to go into that game off the back of a heavy defeat. "We got to rest [...] Click to continue reading...

Tampere United fans were a little bit disgruntled on Sunday. They had been chucked out of the HJK match en masse for letting off smoke bombs, a ridiculous over-reaction and unnecessary collective punishment. The first half of the VPS match was extremely dull as a result, as the Sinikaarti section was empty and the fans [. Click to continue reading...

I live in the most violent country in Western Europe. Homicides are more common here than anywhere else that wasn't run by communists until the early 90s. Someone was stabbed in the chest in the central square of Tampere on Friday night, I have seen numerous fights there, and when people are drunk you know [. Click to continue reading...

A year ago, TamU were getting a good seeing to at the hands of Norwegian giants Rosenborg in the Champions League Third Qualifying Round. The Trondheim club have a budget roughly 10 times bigger than TamU, so it was no surprise that Rosenborg ran out easy winners. No shame for a Finnish club in losing [. Click to continue reading...

TamU had a bizarre night in Lahti last Friday, with an odd refereeing performance, a crucial goalkeeping mistake, three goals in the last minute and a questionable red card, but nobody said anything about match fixing.  You can see the highlights of their 2-2 draw here. On saturday I went to valkeakoski to see FC Haka [. Click to continue reading...

Right now 28-year-old midfielder Chris James is starring for Tampere United in the Finnish Veikkausliiga. So far this season, James has notched five goals in 14 appearances. The former Fulham player actually played in over 30 matches for the various English youth squads, but decided to play his senior international soccer for the country of his birth with the New Zealand All Whites. Click to continue reading...

FC Lahti and TamU kicked off the 18th round on Friday and the matched ended in a 2-2 draw. Dramatically, TamU were up by one until the 90th minute. Then Jari Litmanen scored in stoppage time and two minutes later Jonne Kemppinen gave the hosts the lead. Nobody expected TamU to get a result anymore, [. Click to continue reading...

FC Lahti have announced that the legendary #10, Jari Litmanen, is a new addition to their squad. He has been training with the team for a few weeks now and it was quite natural that he decided to bring this season to its conclusion playing for Lahti. "He has been training very well with us, and [...] Click to continue reading...

SOMETIMES interviews take a different course to that envisaged beforehand. Zambian striker Zeddy Saileti's meeting with the Helsinki Times is one such occasion, because when we meet Saileti is not a happy man. His team, RoPS, have lost 5-0 to Tampere United, and Saileti knows who to blame: the referee. Click to continue reading...

Juha raised a good question the other day about Finnish teams in Europe. Are they happy to draw big clubs, in the expectation that they will get a drubbing and a bumper crowd, or do they prefer to get the unkown teams that might offer a chance of priogress? TamU's co-owner Tim Rowe was rather [...] Click to continue reading...

Friday's UEFA Cup and Champions League draws could have shown the participating Finnish clubs a bit more mercy. TamU's dreams of making it to the Champions League group stage are pretty much ruled out. They need a perfect performance and some help from the heavens above if they want to cancel out Artmedia's 3-1 aggregate lead [. Click to continue reading...

Anorthosis Famagusta/Rapid Wien v OlympiakosVitoria de Guimarães v IFK Göteborg/FC BaselShakhtar Donetsk v NK Domale/Dinamo ZagrebFC Schalke 04 v Atlético MadridAaB Aalborg/FK Modrica v Rangers/FBK KaunasBarcelona v Beitar Jerusalem/Wisła KrakówLevski Sofia v Anderlecht/BATE BorisovStandard Liege v LiverpoolInter Baku/Partizan Belgrade v Fenerbahçe/MTK BudapestFC Twente v ArsenalSpartak Moscow v Drogheda United/Dynamo KievJuventus v Tampere United/Artmedia PetralkaBrann Bergen/Ventspils v MarseilleFiorentina v Slavia PragueGalatasaray v Steaua BucharestPanathinaikos/Dinamo Tbilisi v Sheriff Tiraspol/Sparta PragueMatches are August 12/13 and 26/27. Click to continue reading...

Drogheda United 1-2 Dynamo Kiev Brann Bergen 1-0 Ventspils Inter Baku 1-1 Partizan Belgrade Domale 0-3 Dinamo Zagreb Panathinaikos 3-0 Dinamo Tbilisi Rangers 0-0 FBK Kaunas Anorthosis Famagusta 3-0 Rapid Wien Anderlecht 1-2 BATE Borisov IFK Göteborg 1-1 Basel Fenerbahçe 2-0 MTK Budapest Beitar Jerusalem 2-1 Wisła Kraków AaB Aalborg 5-0 Modriča Sheriff Tiraspol 0-1 Sparta Prague Tampere United 1-3 Artmedia PetralkaSecond Leg August 5 and 6. Click to continue reading...

FF Jaro - Tampere United 1-4 RoPS - FC Inter 0-0 HJK - IFK Mariehamn 4-0 MyPa - FC Honka 0-2 FC Haka - VPS 1-0 FC Lahti - FC KooTeePee 1-0 TPS - KuPS 3-3 Click on the game for highlights. TPS-KuPS should appear later. Inter still did not lose, but their form is not so amazing anymore. They have drawn six [. Click to continue reading...

It's unclear whether or not Mathias Lindström will play for TamU tonight. He has a calf injury, and Hjelm told the media that he might well miss out. That would put Kuoppala in the team, who is solid enough but not as mobile as Lindström. That aside, it should be a good game. Artmedia have their [. Click to continue reading...

Once again, the games start on Saturday and the last one will be played on Wednesday - so if my predictions go wrong as far as Wednesday's TPS-KuPS is concerned, I'll blame it on having to write the preview so early. FF Jaro - Tampere United This is Saturday's only game. TamU are probably tired following their [. Click to continue reading...

TAMPERE UNITED won a dramatic tie against Buducnost Podgorica, the champions of Montenegro. A 1-1 draw in the away leg on 23 July was enough to see TamU through after a narrow victory in the home game a week earlier. TamU went 1-0 up through makeshift striker Henri Myntti, but had a nervous finish after [. Click to continue reading...

Most likely it will not be a high-scoring game This was my prediction before last night's Veikkausliiga game between TPS and VPS. Luckily my address is not public, so I don't have a line of gamblers on my doorstep trying to kick the door in. VPS delivered an absolutely horrible performance and succumbed to a 6-1 [. Click to continue reading...

This game pretty much defined 'tricky away leg'. Buducnost represented Serbia and Montenegro in European competition in 2005-06, and were easily the toughest side TamU could have drawn. If last year's First Qualifying Round tie against SS Murata was little more than a stroll, this year's was always going to be tough. Click to continue reading...

The 2008/09 UEFA Champions League has begun.

The big boys will get the ball rolling in September, but in the heat of the summer the first qualifying round has begun. Ten matches took place last night, with another four scheduled for tonight.

For many, this stage of the competition may be tedious -- who cares about the Maltese champion! Click to continue reading...

As I mentioned last week, we're going to take a look at the UEFA Cup, this companion competition to the Champions League. The UEFA Cup evolved from the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was founded in 1955, two weeks after the founding of the European Champion Clubs' Cup.

The original tournament lasted three years, with matches timed to coincide with trade fairs and involved teams from Barcelona, Basle, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Milan and Zagreb. Click to continue reading...