In part three of our pictorial roundup of 2009, we focus on the senior men's national team. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Baxter had an eventful 2009. Finland's qualification efforts ran aground, and the introduction of younger players went more slowly than many Finland fans would have liked.

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The road to the Champions League group stages is longer and more treacherous than Alberto Contador on the mountain stages of the Tour de France.
Of course some clubs are not required to join that road until it becomes a lot wider with tarmac, cat's eyes and those flashing signs warning you against bottle necks at Junction 11. Click to continue reading...

Watching Tampere United struggle to a single goal victory over JJK at Ratina yesterday, it occurred to me just how astonishing it is that anyone watches Finnish football. The first half was enjoyably predictable, as TamU attacked and JJk attempted to string a few passes together. JJK's South Korean striker Nam was brought off injured, and someone curled a shot against the bar for the Jyväskyläns (it could very possibly have been Koskela), and Rafinha got the winner when Sinisalo's headed past his own keeper, but overall it was a pretty run of the mill Veikkausliiga match.

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TPS won MYPA 3-1 and Lahti took a 2-1 win over Tampere United. The latter meant that my prediction accuracy fell from 100% to 50% compared to Wednesday's round of games, and I'm too disillusioned to round the games up in any more depth now. I will round them up later, however, once the whole round is over.

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Ever since the exciting news of Dulee Johnson's return to AIK there's been a virtual dead calm surrounding Swedish soccer. Nothing truly noteworthy has occurred in the Allsvenskan transfer market in the past week, but the Allsvenskan teams are at least returning to practice following a short vacation. Click to continue reading...

I hate this. Really, I do. We're standing on the edge of the precipice now, FA Cup final done and dusted, and even the Spanish league all settled. There's nothing keeping us from tumbling into two months without our dearest friend, the game of football.

But there is, if you look hard enough, a safety net.

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Tune in at 6 PM (GMT +2) for a last-minute preview and a minute-by-minute live blog of Saturday's Veikkausliiga top 2 clash between FC Inter Turku and Haka.

FORM

Neither of these two teams were expected to be anything more than outside candidates with regards to the title race, but top 2 they are six rounds into the campaign.

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JJK v HJK, Sunday 6:30pm

This is a tough one to predict. As ever, it all depends on Muurinen's team selection, and the choice between the quick and mobile strikers or the less mobile Mäkelä. He played Mäkelä in the last game, and they got a disappointing draw against Honka, so maybe he will go with a Popovitch-Parikka combination for the JJK game.

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HJK v IFK Mariehamn, Wednesday 6:30pm

This is, somewhat surprisingly, a top of the table clash. IFK have already beaten last season's champions, drawn with one of the favourites for this season, and had a regulation win over wooden spoon-chasers KuPS. This puts them level on points with HJK, who dropped their two points at home to draw specialists TPS.

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Tampere United v VPS, Saturday 6:30pm

The first TamU home game after CEO Sami Salonen and Sporting Director Jarkko Wiss left the club promises to be an eventful affair. Fans are unhappy at the way both men have been treated, as Wiss was not just a Sporting Director but TamU's most successful captain of all time.

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Haka v HJK

This is Finland's classico, the game between the historical heavyweights with more titles between them than they know what to do with. It's also Haka's first home game, Sedu Koskinen's first chance to bring the magic of a summer of music festivals and family-friendly entertainment to Tehtaan Kenttä.

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IFK Mariehamn 2 Inter Turku 0

The first round of Veikkausliiga threw up a few surprising results, but arguably the biggest shock was Inter Turku's 2-0 defeat in Mariehamn. The manner of defeat was more surprising than the result, as Iner's manager Job Dragtsma pointed out afterwards.

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IFK Mariehamn 2 Inter Turku 0

The first round of Veikkausliiga threw up a few surprising results, but arguably the biggest shock was Inter Turku's 2-0 defeat in Mariehamn. The manner of defeat was more surprising than the result, as Iner's manager Job Dragtsma pointed out afterwards.

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IFK Mariehamn 2 Inter Turku 0

The first round of Veikkausliiga threw up a few surprising results, but arguably the biggest shock was Inter Turku's 2-0 defeat in Mariehamn. The manner of defeat was more surprising than the result, as Iner's manager Job Dragtsma pointed out afterwards.

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In: Aristides Pertot, Eemeli Reponen, Guillano Grot, Touko Tumanto, Pablo Gomez-Marttila, Kennedy Ugoala Nwanganga, David Monsalve, Ari Nyman, Alberto Ramirez, Claudio Verino

Out: Mika Mäkitalo, Jos Hooiveld, Dominic Chatto, Domagoj Abramovic, Oskari Forsman, Diego Corpache, Soga Sambo

Coach: Job Dragtsma

Claimed playing budget: €720,000

Egan says: Last year's champions had a tough winter, playing most of the League cup with a very young team.

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In: Aristides Pertot, Eemeli Reponen, Guillano Grot, Touko Tumanto, Pablo Gomez-Marttila, Kennedy Ugoala Nwanganga, David Monsalve, Ari Nyman, Alberto Ramirez, Claudio Verino

Out: Mika Mäkitalo, Jos Hooiveld, Dominic Chatto, Domagoj Abramovic, Oskari Forsman, Diego Corpache, Soga Sambo

Coach: Job Dragtsma

Claimed playing budget: €720,000

Egan says: Last year's champions had a tough winter, playing most of the League cup with a very young team.

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Correction: In the last sentence, I originally wrote that Chatto said 'Finland is an excellent place to play football'. It should (and does now), of course, read 'Sweden is an excellent place to play football'. I am sure that Dominic holds the same opinion about Finland, but he was explaining his transfer and so was [. Click to continue reading...

Correction: In the last sentence, I originally wrote that Chatto said 'Finland is an excellent place to play football'. It should (and does now), of course, read 'Sweden is an excellent place to play football'. I am sure that Dominic holds the same opinion about Finland, but he was explaining his transfer and so was [. Click to continue reading...

These are two of the brighter young stars of Veikkausliiga, and they're both heading over to Trond Sollien's little Nordic colony in Eredivisie. I spoke to Ojala's coach Job Dragtsma this week, and he understandably feels that it would be a little early for Ojala to leave Inter Turku, but of course it's a possibility [. Click to continue reading...

Watch the match from YLE's stream here(click the link) Full time: Inter win the league, and Mika Mäkitalo does a tremendous sliding tackle on Stefan Håkans, Inter owner who always stands next to the bench. Celebrations in full swing now, I need that hot rum to warm my frozen fingers.... 88 mins: Ojala tried twice to throw [. Click to continue reading...

I'll do a live blog of Veikkausliiga's last day tomorrow. It will begin a couple of hours before the games start, as I'm a bit too tipsy to write a preview now. I'll be in Turku watching Inter v Jaro, which is hopefully not going to be postponed, while Honka travel to Åland to take [...] Click to continue reading...

The Veikkausliiga players of the year have been announced. The players union choices are as follows: Player of the year: Dominic Chatto (FC Inter) Newcomer of the year: Aleksandr Kokko (FC Honka) Referee of the year: Tero Nieminen And Veikkausliiga selected: Goalkeeper of the year: Patrick Bantamoi (FC Inter) Defender of the year: Jos Hooiveld (FC Inter) Midfielder of the year: Mika [. Click to continue reading...