Ronaldhinio

best gool »

Finland National Football Team

Head coach: Roy Hodgson
Captain: Jari Litmanen
Top scorer: Jari Litmanen
FIFA ranking: 42

The Finland national football team represents Finland in international football competitions and is controlled by the Football Association of Finland.

The Finnish national team has never qualified for a finals tournament of the World Cup or the European Championships, but has made four Olympic tournament appearances. It was considered one of the weakest teams in Europe in past decades; especially at a time when many of today's smallest nations didn't yet compete in international football. Finland is one of the few European countries where football is not the most popular spectator sport, and the game has traditionally been played on an amateur basis in the country. Only in the last decade - after the Bosman ruling and the removal of foreign quotas in the EU region - have Finnish players had significant opportunities to play in the continent's top leagues. Today, nearly all regular members of the national team play outside of Finland.

Finland currently ranks somewhere around the middle class in the UEFA region. It regularly beats the lowest-ranked teams, and can occasionally perform well against the stronger teams. It has not, however, yet found enough consistency against the top nations to truly push for qualification.

Finland are currently competing in Group A in qualification for Euro 2008 together with Portugal, Poland, Serbia, Belgium, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The team started the campaign very well, beating Poland 3-1 away and earning a 1-1 draw with Portugal at home. The Finns then gained four points from their difficult away ties against Armenia and Kazakhstan, drawing 0-0 with the former and beating the latter 2-0. On 15th of November, 2006 Finland beat Armenia 1-0 at home, thus remaining undefeated in the qualifying. In Finland's first match of 2007, they were in poor form when they lost against Azerbaijan 1-0, one of the worst matches in Finnish footballing history.

The Football Association of Finland was founded as early as 1907 and became a member of FIFA in 1908, despite the fact that at that time Finland was still an autonomous grand duchy of the Russian Empire and didn't gain independence until 1917. Finland played its first international match on October 22, 1911, losing to neighbours Sweden 2-5 in Helsinki.

A fourth place finish at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm still arguably ranks as the country's best ever achievement in international football. Finland beat Italy and Russia in the first two rounds before losing to Great Britain in the semi-finals. In the bronze medal match they were beaten 0-9 by the Netherlands. According to the story, the Finns were under the impression that the match would be a day later, so they had gone out celebrating the night before the match, and as a consequence were easily beaten. Finland's star player Eino Soinio, aged only 17 at the time, was chosen to the all-star team of the tournament by Swedish paper Idrottsbladet.

Finland also took part in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, but was beaten by Peru in the first round. The country sought qualification for the World Cup for the first time in the 1938 event, but failed to score a single point. The fortunes of the team didn't improve much in the 1950s or 1960s: they were never near qualification, and didn't achieve their first win until 1965. Finland also took part in European Championship qualifying since the 1968 event, but had to wait for its first win until 1978. The 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki saw the hosts crash to Austria in the first round. Finland did, however, win the unofficial Nordic championship in 1952, 1964 and 1966.

The results of the team improved somewhat in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Finland missed out on qualification for Euro 1980 by just a point and for the 1986 World Cup by two points. Finland was invited to take part in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow after many Western countries announced they would boycott the games, but failed to progress from its group.

By the mid-1990s Finland started to have more players in high profile European leagues, led by the Ajax superstar Jari Litmanen. In 1996 Danish Euro 1992 winning coach Richard Møller Nielsen was hired to take Finland to the 1998 World Cup. The team enjoyed mixed fortunes in the campaign, highpoints of which were a draw and a win away to Norway and Switzerland respectively. Going into the last match, Finland would have needed a win at home to Hungary to earn a place in the play-offs. They led the game 1-0 going into injury time, but scored an own goal, and once again the dreams of qualification were over. Møller Nielsen also tried to lead Finland to Euro 2000. In this campaign the Finns recorded a sensational win away to Turkey, but couldn't compete with Germany and Turkey in the long run.

Antti Muurinen succeeded Møller Nielsen as coach in 2000. He had arguably the most talented group of Finnish players ever at his disposal, including players such as Antti Niemi, Sami Hyypiä, Teemu Tainio and Mikael Forssell in addition to the legendary Litmanen. The team also performed quite well under him in qualification for the 2002 World Cup despite a difficult draw, earning two draws against Germany and a home draw with England as well as beating Greece 5-1 in Helsinki. In the end, however, England and Germany proved too strong, and the Finns finished third in the group. Hopes were high going into qualification for Euro 2004 after the promising last campaign and friendly wins over the likes of Norway, Belgium and Portugal. However, Finland started the campaign by losing to Wales and Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro, now Serbia). These losses were followed by two defeats by Italy, and a 3-0 home win over Serbia and Montenegro was little consolation, as the Finns finished fourth in the group. In qualification for the 2006 World Cup Finland failed to score a single point in six matches against the top three teams in their group, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Romania. Muurinen was sacked in June 2005, and he was replaced by caretaker Jyrki Heliskoski, but results didn't improve.

In August 2005 it was announced that Roy Hodgson would become the new Finland coach in 2006, and he started in the job in January of that year. The Englishman becomes the second high profile foreign coach in recent history of the country, as he tries to lead the team to its first ever major championship qualification.

Finland Team
No.	NAME	POS	Height	Weight	Age
-	Peter Enckelman	G	6-2	173	30
12	Magnus Bahne	G	-	-	-
12	Niki Maenpaa	G	-	-	-
22	Jussi Jaaskelainen	G	6-3	178	32
2	Petri Pasanen	D	6-2	190	26
4	Sami Hyypia	D	6-3	187	33
5	Hannu Tihinen	D	6-1	181	30
14	Toni Kuivasto	D	6-2	183	31
23	Markus Heikkinen	D	6-1	176	28
28	Ari Nyman	D	6-1	181	23
29	Veli Lampi	D	-	-	-
-	Aki Riihilahti	M	6-0	168	30
-	Peter Kopteff	M	5-11	165	28
6	Mika Vayrynen	M	5-10	154	25
7	Mika Nurmela	M	5-10	174	35
8	Teemu Tainio	M	5-9	152	27
10	Jari Litmanen	M	5-11	179	36
15	Jari Ilola	M	6-2	172	28
21	Jonatan Johansson	M	6-2	176	31
32	Roman Eremenko	M	5-11	148	20
34	Hannu Patronen	M	-	-	-
9	Mikael Forssell	S	5-10	150	26
11	Joonas Kolkka	S	5-9	157	32
18	Shefki Kuqi	S	6-2	195	30
19	Toni Kallio	S	6-4	185	28
20	Aleksei Eremenko	S	6-0	174	24

Group A
	GP	W	D	L	GS	GA	GD	P
Poland	9	6	1	2	15	7	8	19
Serbia	7	4	2	1	10	4	6	14
Portugal	7	4	2	1	15	5	10	14
Finland	8	4	2	2	9	5	4	14
Belgium	8	2	1	5	5	10	-5	7
Armenia	7	2	1	4	3	7	-4	7
Kazakhstan	8	1	3	4	5	11	-6	6
Azerbaijan	8	1	2	5	4	17	-13	5