Guest Jeffery S. Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 quote:Originally posted by BringBackTheBlizzard I did mention the ethnic Swedish angle a few posts up so wasn't trying to sweep that fact under the carpet. 20,000 or so people, which appears to be the population of the biggest island in Aland where the town of Marienhemn is located, is usually not a big enough population to sustain fully-pro soccer in Europe regardless of cultural factors. Given the short summer season in Finland, the team is probably basically semi-pro. Villareal has a population of 40,000, and the nearest town is Castellon, which had a team in top flight some 18-20 years ago and are dire rivals. But the owner is rich. How big do you think some of those Norwegian towns are in top flight? I'll bet there are towns of that size or lower and very isolated (Sogndal, where Reda started). Or have you looked at the attendance figures in Scotland lately, where Hastings is at Inverness getting 7000 is a huge gate and a special occasion. Apart from size, if the region has resources beyond population, it could have a base for sponsors, perhaps it is a tourism area and the local tourist board throws in money. Perhaps some other key service company. Perhaps it is an area with special gov't funding because of its isolation or sociological make-up. That said, my opinion is that any time you are playing in top flight in pretty well any league in Europe except the absolute minnows, you are doing well for a start. You are going to get a salary you can live on and play pro. There is a lot of experience to be had, if they go play a bigger team, maybe with national team players on it, that is a step up. And if he shines and they relegate, a bigger team will pick him up. You are in the mechanism, whereas in North America you really are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 Did you see the word "usually" in my post? That denotes the fact that I am well aware that there are a few exceptions. Just so you know Inverness has a much larger population than Marienhemn (60,000ish these days) but the 7000 crowds are based on supporters traveling up from Scotland's central belt to watch teams like Rangers, Celtic, Hearts and Hibs etc. The home support is relatively small (2500 maybe typical) as a lot of people bitterly opposed the merger of two old Highland League teams called Thistle and Caledonian prior to Scottish league entry about 15 years ago and still boycott the new team. The real attendance outlier in the Scottish Highlands is Ross County from the village of Dingwall (less than 10,000 people crowds of 2000) who joined at the same time but they draw from a large rural catchment area as well so those numbers are actually a bit misleading. Beyond that if you are trying to argue that Finnish soccer is the big time relative to MLS we will clearly have to agree to disagree. Other than Jari Litmanen I struggle to think of too many famous Finnish players. It is not an area the top European clubs pay much attention to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew W Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 Just reading up on it a bit on uefa.com and the preseason league cup fixtures actually extend the season to nine months with the Finnish Cup final being played in November. They play a 24 game schedule in the Veikkausliiga. IFK Mariehamn finished fifth last year so I'm going to assume they finished three or four spots from a UEFA Cup slot or qualifying spot. On the other hand IFK play in Wiklöf Holding Arena which holds 4,000 spectators and seats only 1600. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew W Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 quote:Originally posted by BringBackTheBlizzard Other than Jari Litmanen I struggle to think of too many famous Finnish players. It is not an area the top European clubs pay much attention to. Er, Sami Hyypia, Mikael Forssell, Jussi Jääskeläinen, Teemu Tainio, Antti Niemi, Peter Enckelman, Shefki Kuqi and the immortal Aki Riihilahti. Actually, these were the ones I was able to think of off the top of my head. Not bad IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 No way do they play nine months in Finland. The cup final is in late October about as often as early November according to rsssf:- http://www.rsssf.com/tablesf/fincuphist.html Helsinki's climate is very similar to Toronto's so if November is basically off limits to them there is absolutely no chance they are playing in February and March is unlikely given the average low is -7 Celsius:- http://weather.yahoo.com/climo/FIXX0002_c.html Month Avg. High Avg. Low Avg. Precip. January -4.0° C -10.0° C 4.00 cm February -4.0° C -10.0° C 3.00 cm March 1.0° C -7.0° C 3.00 cm April 7.0° C -1.0° C 4.00 cm May 15.0° C 4.0° C 4.00 cm June 20.0° C 9.0° C 4.00 cm July 21.0° C 12.0° C 7.00 cm August 20.0° C 11.0° C 8.00 cm September 14.0° C 6.0° C 7.00 cm October 8.0° C 2.0° C 7.00 cm November 2.0° C -3.0° C 7.00 cm December -2.0° C -7.0° C 6.00 cm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Andrew W Er, Sami Hyypia, Mikael Forssell, Jussi Jääskeläinen, Teemu Tainio, Antti Niemi, Peter Enckelman, Shefki Kuqi and the immortal Aki Riihilahti. Actually, these were the ones I was able to think of off the top of my head. Not bad IMHO. Well googled. After the nine month season stuff I'm not going to be wasting any time on your messages in future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew W Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Why? Because I responded to you? Seems a bit uncalled for. UEFA story This is a snippet. "With the 2006 Finnish Cup final being played on 4 November, the League Cup helped extend the Finnish season to an unusually long nine months, and the hope is that the same thing will happen in 2007 after the League Cup returns on 2 February." And for a matter of fact, I googled none of those players. I referenced a few for correct spelling because that's important to me. I actually got those off a cheat sheet I've kept for a few years playing fantasy football games. All of those referenced are pretty household names for those of us that follow English soccer. Hyypia goes without saying, Jääskeläinen is considered one of the best goalkeepers in the EPL, Niemi has been around for ages and Enckelman, well, being a Villa fan how will I ever forget him. Forssell is very well known and Kuqi I remember quite well from Blackburn. Riihilahti I threw in because there's a poster on V's (sstacko I believe) that is a huge fan of Crystal Palace and mentioned him often. Tainio of course plays with Stalteri and Spurs (and is in a similar position in terms of playing time). There's also a Finnish defender who plays with Bremen but I don't remember his name right now. The point being that despite appearances most of these players arose out of the Finnish leagues and moved on to other leagues, so yes it does get scouted and isn't irrelevant. I love TFC and MLS and certainly rate it higher than many give it credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nhr57 Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 quote: That Finnish team played a game on Wednesday, the League Cup, which is done in two groups who play round robin. So, that would make it nine months. EDIT: Too slow. Anyway, I found an interview with one of my team's old talents, who played for Mariehamn last season but decided to give up on his professional career and move back to Stockholm to study (still only 22 years old). Here's an interesting quote: quote:Now that you've done a very impressive season in the Finnish league, how [well is that information spread]... well maybe not in the big footballing world, but in Finland and Sweden? I think it's pretty bad because the coverage of games is so poor, in TV etc. For anyone to notice, you would have to have performed really good, really dominated. Besides, I don't know if IFK is that accepted in the highest league [in Finland], that people actually respect us .... If you look at other clubs, outside of Finland, I think they mainly look at the biggest teams in Finland and therefore it's pretty hard for a player in IFK to get attention from, for example, a Norwegian club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 You are being highly selective with your facts, Andrew W. This Finnish League Cup you mention is actually an indoor tournament designed for preseason warm up. The real season does not start until late April and typically lasts until the end of October:- http://www.uefa.com/news/newsId=279406,printer.htmx Sixteen line up for indoor cup Friday, 11 February 2005 e-mailPrint By Mikael Erävuori The Finnish season does not start until late April, but teams are already preparing for the League Cup, which was reintroduced last term. All Veikkausliiga clubs will take part together with FC Honka and FC Hämeenlinna from the first division. League Cup indoors The 16 sides are split into four groups with matches being played indoors from 18 February. Two teams from each group will progress to the quarter-finals and the final will be played on 23 April - just before the start of the league campaign. After that you want to make a song and dance out of the fact you can name a few Finnish players who play in top European leagues like it is supposed to mean something. Of course I know who Neimi is. He played for both Rangers and Hearts in the SPL before moving to England. Mixu Paatalainein was another Finn who played to a decent standard in both Scotland and England. I was talking about players who are famous, however, not about any journeyman pro who shows up on a google search because he has managed to carve out a bit of a career for himself outside Finland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 quote:Originally posted by BringBackTheBlizzard You are being highly selective with your facts, Andrew W. But this is full field 11 a side soccer they are playing indoors much like the Norwegian women's league does is it not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Unbelievable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tool Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Hi Everyone! I'm one of those 26 000 inhabitants on the Åland Islands. Although we don't really know anything about Rosenlund here apart from being a Canadian midfielder, he's certainly an interesting player. We currently have one spot in the central midfield open after the departure of former AIK player Gabirel Petrovic. Rosenlund is currently competing for this place along with former Ajax player (and Nwankwus brother) Christopher Kanu. Both are currently playnig in midfield against Viikingit in the indoor League Cup. No report so far, but if you are interested I can add more later on. Åland is a typical holiday destination with millions of tourists from all over Europe visiting (mainly during summer). The team is currently trying to get ready for the third season in the Premier Division. Last year they missed Europe with one point. The quality of Finnish football may be underestimated here. Finland is currently topping the qualifications for the European Championships despite being in the same group as Portugal, Belgium, Poland and Serbia. Also last year IFK managed to beat one of Swedens top teams, Hammarby. The Finnish league is also good shopping window. Every year 5-10 players are exported to bigger leagues in Europe. On this link you can see that there are Finns playing all over Europe, from the Premiership in England to Serie A in Italy: http://www.palloliitto.fi/maajoukkueet/miesten_a-maajoukkue/pelaajat/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tool Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 By the way, the indoor league cup is played in places like this: http://www.eckerohallen.fi/images/press/nordisk_fotbollscup_10.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaucho Posted February 11, 2007 Author Share Posted February 11, 2007 Thanks for stopping by, Tool! I understand there is a match today (Sunday), so if you happen to watch it, please give us your impressions of Rosenlund. Also, if you have any useful links (media, gametrackers, message boards, supporters' websites, etc) for following IFK, please share them. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manager Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 quote:Originally posted by BringBackTheBlizzard Doubtful whether this club are even fully pro given the fact soccer tends to rank behind hockey, track and field... Football is the second most popular sport in Finland after hockey. The Finnish form of baseball is "pesäpallo", and it isn't that popular among most of the people, only in the Finnish countryside. It's true that the Finnish Premier Division isn't as big as the swedish league, but one of the big clubs in Finland, HJK or Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi has even attended the UEFA Champions League in the late '90s. Tyler played his first testmatch today against premier division newcomers Viikingit in a pre-season-match, but he didn't impress me at all. The whole team played really badly though, so I think IFK Mariehamn should give him one more chance. If you want to discuss this topic at IFK Mariehamn's fansite, you'll find it here: http://www.greenmeanmachine.com In the "Bildarkiv" link you'll also find pictures from matches and fans etc. The Finnish Premier Division, Veikkausliiga: http://www.veikkausliiga.com IFK Mariehamn: http://www.ifkmariehamn.com/fotboll The Finnish FA: http://www.palloliitto.fi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manager Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Pictures from Tyler's first game in IFK at the bottom of the page: http://www.greenmeanmachine.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=684&start=15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbailey62 Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 quote:Originally posted by tool By the way, the indoor league cup is played in places like this: http://www.eckerohallen.fi/images/press/nordisk_fotbollscup_10.jpg That looks like a great facility. What is the playing surface? thx db Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 quote:Originally posted by tool Hi Everyone! The quality of Finnish football may be underestimated here. Finland is currently topping the qualifications for the European Championships despite being in the same group as Portugal, Belgium, Poland and Serbia. Welcome to the board. Your English is pretty amazing given its probably your third language after Swedish and Finnish. Congratulations on that. I failed pretty miserably when I tried to become trilingual recently. I'm not going to get into a huge argument with you but I will point out that Scotland are top of their group at the moment as well, above both Italy and France, but nobody would seriously try to claim that means the SPL is better than serie A and Le Championnat on that basis. Being 33rd in the country rankings based on UEFA's coefficients for determing how many UEFA Cup and Champions League qualifiers each league gets is probably more relevant:- http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2007.html 1 Spain 15.500 14.312 12.437 15.642 10.571 68.462 7/ 7 2 Italy 15.928 8.875 14.000 15.357 8.928 63.088 5/ 7 3 England 10.666 11.250 15.571 14.428 11.000 62.915 7/ 8 4 France 7.916 13.500 11.428 10.812 8.250 51.906 6/ 8 5 Germany 9.142 4.714 10.571 10.437 6.500 41.364 3/ 7 6 Portugal 10.750 10.250 8.166 5.500 5.916 40.582 3/ 6 7 Romania 2.166 4.333 5.500 16.833 11.333 40.165 2/ 3 8 Netherlands 6.166 5.416 12.000 7.583 6.500 37.665 3/ 7 9 Russia 3.625 5.875 10.000 10.000 6.125 35.625 2/ 4 10 Scotland 7.375 7.375 4.750 4.250 5.750 29.500 2/ 4 11 Belgium 6.875 5.875 6.125 5.500 4.700 29.075 1/ 5 12 Ukraine 4.250 4.875 8.100 5.750 5.500 28.475 1/ 4 13 Czech Republic 6.200 7.375 2.875 4.625 5.750 26.825 4 14 Turkey 4.666 6.500 5.375 4.000 5.700 26.241 1/ 5 15 Greece 7.166 4.166 6.166 3.333 4.500 25.331 2/ 6 16 Bulgaria 4.166 4.166 2.375 8.750 5.125 24.582 4 17 Switzerland 5.875 1.875 2.625 9.375 4.100 23.850 5 18 Norway 2.700 6.125 3.500 5.400 2.000 19.725 5 19 Serbia 4.833 4.500 4.250 3.250 2.125 18.958 4 20 Denmark 3.250 4.200 1.500 3.500 6.125 18.575 4 21 Austria 4.000 2.125 7.625 3.250 1.500 18.500 5 22 Israel 5.833 2.250 3.625 1.500 4.500 17.708 2/ 4 23 Poland 6.625 4.125 2.500 1.125 2.625 17.000 4 24 Hungary 3.166 4.833 4.166 1.000 1.000 14.165 3 25 Slovakia 0.666 2.500 1.333 4.333 2.000 10.832 3 26 Croatia 2.750 3.625 3.000 0.333 1.000 10.708 3 27 Cyprus 3.166 1.333 1.333 3.000 1.750 10.582 4 28 Sweden 2.250 1.500 3.000 2.666 1.125 10.541 4 29 Slovenia 0.666 2.166 3.500 2.333 1.250 9.915 4 30 Bosnia-Herzegovina 3.000 1.666 1.666 1.500 1.833 9.665 3 31 Latvia 1.166 0.833 3.166 1.333 2.166 8.664 3 32 Lithuania 0.833 0.833 2.500 1.333 1.833 7.332 3 33 Finland 0.333 1.666 1.666 2.333 1.333 7.331 3 34 Moldova 1.000 1.500 1.500 1.666 1.500 7.166 3 35 Ireland 0.166 0.333 1.333 1.833 2.833 6.498 3 36 Georgia 1.333 0.333 2.666 0.666 1.166 6.164 3 37 Liechtenstein 1.000 0.000 2.000 1.000 2.000 6.000 1 38 Macedonia 1.166 1.666 0.333 1.500 1.166 5.831 3 39 Iceland 0.166 0.500 2.500 0.833 1.000 4.999 3 40 Belarus 1.166 0.666 0.500 1.333 1.000 4.665 3 41 Albania 0.666 0.333 1.000 1.000 0.833 3.832 3 42 Estonia 0.166 0.333 0.833 0.833 1.500 3.665 3 43 Armenia 1.166 0.666 0.500 0.666 0.500 3.498 3 44 Azerbaijan 0.000 0.000 0.500 1.333 1.333 3.166 3 45 Kazakhstan 0.500 0.166 0.000 1.000 0.666 2.332 3 46 Northern Ireland 0.333 0.500 0.666 0.500 0.166 2.165 3 47 Wales 0.333 0.333 0.000 0.666 0.666 1.998 3 48 Faroe Islands 0.166 0.000 0.333 0.666 0.500 1.665 3 49 Luxembourg 0.500 0.166 0.333 0.500 0.166 1.665 3 50 Malta 0.833 0.333 0.333 0.000 0.166 1.665 3 51 Andorra 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1 52 San Marino 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manager Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 quote:Originally posted by BringBackTheBlizzard Welcome to the board. Your English is pretty amazing given its probably your third language after Swedish and Finnish. Congratulations on that. I failed pretty miserably when I tried to become trilingual recently. I'm not going to get into a huge argument with you but I will point out that Scotland are top of their group at the moment as well, above both Italy and France, but nobody would seriously try to claim that means the SPL is better than serie A and Le Championnat on that basis. Being 33rd in the country rankings based on UEFA's coefficients for determing how many UEFA Cup and Champions League qualifiers each league gets is probably more relevant:- http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2007.html I think you missed the point here. He's not saying that the Finnish League would be better than the Portuguese or the Polish, only that it is underestimated, which i think is true. If you look at the NT players, you'll see that everyone who now plays for a top-club in Europe, started their careers in the Finnish Premier Division. To name a few: Jari Litmanen, MyPa --> Ajax (NED) Sami Hyypiä, MyPa --> Willem II (NED) Mika Väyrynen, FC Jokerit --> SC Heerenveen (NED) Mikael Forssell, HJK --> Chelsea FC (ENG) Alexei Eremenko jr., HJK --> US Lecce (ITA) Joonas Kolkka, MyPa --> Willem II (NED) Shefki Kuqi, FC Jokerit --> Stockport County (ENG) Aki Riihilahti, HJK --> Vålerenga IF (NOR) Juho Mäkelä, HJK --> Hearts (SCO) Jussi Jääskeläinen, VPS-Vaasa --> Bolton (ENG) Antti Niemi, HJK --> FC Copenhagen That's just a few, there are plenty more but I think you got my point now. I could also add that almost all of these players have played in bigger clubs after their move to their first European club, for example Jari Litmanen (Barcelona, Liverpool), Aki Riihilahti (Crystal Palace), Mika Väyrynen (PSV Eindhoven), Sami Hyypiä (Liverpool), Antti Niemi (Rangers, Fulham, Southampton)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 The comment about the European Championship was more aimed at some of the usual suspects on here who seem to always want to see any European league as automatically being better than what we have here in North America and who are probably not aware that Finland currently ranks between Lithuania and Moldova in UEFA coefficient terms. I'm surprised you would include Juho Mäkelä. First team appearances have been few and far between for him at Hearts so they loaned him out to FC Thun in Switzerland. I'm well aware, however, that Finland produces players who move onto bigger things in Europe (although it is worth noting that it mainly happens from the bigger clubs who play in Europe) but there again the Toronto Lynx have done that as well with Paul Stalteri (Werder Bremen, Tottenham Hotspur) etc so what does that prove? One of the main themes of this thread has been whether the Nordic countries are a better launching pad to that for a young Canadian player than MLS, now that we have a team at the top tier in North America in Toronto. I would argue they aren't with the possible exception of a few top clubs like Rosenborg Trondheim and AIK Stockholm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Gordon Add also to Sigma's list Nat Borchers with Odd Grenland and Heath Pierce went to a team in Denmark as well. Odd (I think)also put in an offer for Twellman fairly recently, but I think MLS declined. A million bucks (or Eruo's cant recall) was the offer. Twellman won't be going to Norway any time soon:- http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2007/02/12/staying_power_twellman_scores_new_deal/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manager Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 BringBackTheBlizzard--> quote:Finland is not a soccer loving nation. Simple as that. You're totally right when you say that Sweden, Norway and Denmark are bigger footballing nations than Finland, but when you say we don't love football I have to disagree. Finland has got average attendance of 35,000-40,000 when the NT plays, which I think is quite alot. FIN-POR FIN-ARM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtgQIe--BQA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manager Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 Tyler Rosenlund wasn't offered a contract at IFK Mariehamn. http://www.tidningen.aland.net/se/sport/nyhet.asp?newsID=13748 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Manager You're totally right when you say that Sweden, Norway and Denmark are bigger footballing nations than Finland, but when you say we don't love football I have to disagree. Fair enough. I worded that clumsily. What I was trying to get across was that people in Finland don't totally fixate on soccer to the exclusion of other sports the way people tend to somewhere like Scotland where soccer is the number one spectator sport by a very wide margin. Good luck with the upcoming season. Hope the Aland Islanders show the Finns how to play the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manager Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 quote: Fair enough. I worded that clumsily. What I was trying to get across was that people in Finland don't totally fixate on soccer to the exclusion of other sports the way people tend to somewhere like Scotland where soccer is the number one spectator sport by a very wide margin. Good luck with the upcoming season. Hope the Aland Islanders show the Finns how to play the game. Thanks! Same to you. I guess you support Toronto FC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.