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.

Click to continue reading...

Lawrence Smith's first year with Veikkausliiga club VPS has come to a close however it remains to be seen if Smith will be back for a second year with the Finnish team. Click to continue reading...

HJK showed why they are tops in the Veikkausliiga after downing Lawrence Smith and VPS on Sunday at Finnair Stadium in Helsinki. Click to continue reading...

TPS Turku bade ‘farewell' to Wayne Brown this week after the Fulham midfielder finished his summer loan spell at the club. The attacking midfielder, who is hoping to break into the first team of the Premier League club this season, made a very positive impression on Finnish football, scoring an impressive six goals in 19 [. Click to continue reading...

Lawrence Smith and VPS got tripped up at home by league co-leaders TPS in Sunday Veikkausliiga action at Hietalahti Stadium in Vaasa. Click to continue reading...

Haka (2nd) TPS (3rd), Monday 7 PM
Live on Urheilukanava and streams

PREVIEW: This week and the next are of definitive nature as far as the title race is concerned. TPS will play both Haka and table-topping HJK this week, and two wins could see them occupy the driving seat.

Click to continue reading...

Lawrence Smith and VPS were unable to break through a tight Tampere United defense in Sunday Veikkausliiga action at Hietalahti Stadium in Vaasa. Click to continue reading...

Veikkausliiga heads north today, with long journeys deep into the countryside for HJK and Tampere United. RoPS, KuPS and VPS all have nice grounds but terrible pitches, and the difficulty of getting results there has been evident in recent seasons, with VPS acting as a bit of a bogey side for TamU and KuPS getting a memorable 3-2 win against HJK late last season to help them to a play-off spot.

Click to continue reading...

FC Inter (6th) IFK Mariehamn (4th), Saturday 6:30 PM

The weekend (Monday included) has a full round of Veikkausliiga in store for football fans. Tonight's game is first of the seven matches to be played, and NFN will treat you to minute-by-minute updates of the game in this post.

Click to continue reading...

FC Honka (5th) TPS (3rd), Monday 7 PM
Live on Urheilukanava and streams

Ilta-Sanomat's Ville Väänänen already declared that the title race will be run between three teams. There are 13 games to be played, but he is on the right track. Haka and HJK are five points adrift from TPS, who are third with a game in hand.

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.

Click to continue reading...

Last night, a great night from brand new KuPS signing Dickson Nwakaeme helped KuPS to a 3-0 win over RoPS, while TamU did exactly what was needed and overcame JJK with the scoreline 1-0. A more detailed round-up is on the way once the round is completed, but for now we are taking a look at today's games

FC Inter (7th) FC Lahti (9th), Sunday 6:30 PM

As the league table indicates, both sides are underperforming.

Click to continue reading...

I'm just getting the hang of this twitter business, several decades after most other journalists in the western hemisphere, and as such I thought I'd give it a go while here waiting for TamU v JJK to start. Live updates will be posted throughout the game, if you are at all bothered you can read them from my twitter page.

Click to continue reading...

Here we go again. Tonight has two games in store for us, followed by four on Sunday and one on Monday. I'll only be previewing Saturday's games for now, because I have to go and attend a drunken psycho circus of 30 000 people.

Tampere United (10th) JJK (13th), Saturday 6:30 PM

Underachieving TamU can hope for European spots at best, but they did show some promise when they cancelled out a two-goal deficit and emerged as the victors in their last game against Inter on Wednesday.

Click to continue reading...

Full rounds are for losers, so instead, Veikkausliiga continues with Wednesday's three games, all of which kick off at 6:30 PM.

Tampere United (11th) FC Inter (7th)

Inter are a good team on their day, but they can also be a bad team, like last Sunday at HJK. To aggravate the problem, Patrick Bantamoi is suspended for this game because he has apparently been watching too much hockey.

Click to continue reading...

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.

Click to continue reading...

Here we go again. We have two games that start at weird times. It could be a good thing, as it is very hot in Finland this weekend and people are outdoors anyway, even if it is eight o'clock in the evening. Maybe a few will find their way to a football match?

FC Lahti (1oth) Tampere United (11th), 7:30 PM

Lahti are having a difficult time in Veikkausliiga, having lost four of their last five games.

Click to continue reading...

FC Honka KuPS 4-1
TPS RoPS 3-2
Haka FC Lahti 3-0
FF Jaro IFK Mariehamn 0-0
VPS JJK 3-2

This round-up comes a bit late, sorry for that. The reason is that I was on target with all my predictions and have spent my day signing autographs, posing with ugly football fans and talking to betting companies, who are competing for my signature and offering me cars, yachts, virgins and big houses.

Click to continue reading...

Sorry for the recent silence as far as NFN's Finland section is concerned. If you're wondering why we're so quiet over the U21 European Championships, we have a simple explanation: Egan is following the tournament in Sweden as it unfolds, and is covering the proceedings for ESPN Soccernet. Meanwhile, I will treat you to a Veikkausliiga preview.

Click to continue reading...

Veikkausliiga is kind of in the middle of a break because of the U21 European Championships. "Kind of" here means that in the public view, the league is on a break, but at the same time some fixtures are being played. A good way to get rid of spectators, I have to say.

Last night, MYPA took a 2-0 away win at KuPS.

Click to continue reading...

A match between two skillful, attacking-minded teams was always going to be entertaining and Inter and Honka lived up to their expectations. It was a very good game from both teams, and neither side really deserved to lose. Honka did lose in the end, and will not look back at their early season very positively.

Click to continue reading...

FC Inter - FC Honka
Turku, 7 PM
Live on Urheilukanava and streams

The two teams are quite similar in terms of their flowing movement with short passes, and are thus able to make this an entertaining fixture. The teams are four and six points from top respectively, and both are in need of a win tonight if they want to be on the cutting edge as far as the title race is concerned.

Click to continue reading...

We apologise for being unable to write a preview of last night's games, but here's an extended round-up to ease the pain.

MYPA - VPS 0-2

I can't help gloryhunting. VPS took a third consecutive win and I just have to support them. If I didn't, I would be scared by them.

Click to continue reading...

FC Inter - VPS

I am just about to hop on the VPS bandwagon. They scored two goals against RoPS on Sunday, a rare treat for their fans, and rumours are circulating that the central market place in Vaasa has already been booked for VPS' title celebrations in October.

Still, Inter are too strong for the Ostrobothnian side.

Click to continue reading...

RoPS have fallen to the bottom of the Veikkausliiga table, and the scapegoat has been found. It is not CEO Jouko Kiistala, who once again has the privilege of boasting with the fact that he has managed to build another team that might just be able to stay up, if everything goes right. Instead, he was the person, alongside chairman Risto Niva, responsible for finding the scapegoat.

Click to continue reading...

ÅLAND'S archipelago is a beautiful place in summer, a holidaying hotspot and a major attraction for visitors to Finland. You can cycle across the islands, swim in the Gulf of Bothnia, or stay at any one of numerous campsites in Finland's autonomous province, but it's safe to say that Atlético Madrid will be doing none of those things during their visit.

Click to continue reading...

The Finnish newspapers have been full of talk about Veikkausliiga's apparent 'crisis' in the last few weeks. Domestic football in Finland has long suffered from poor facilities, low attendances, players leaving for richer foreign leagues, but these problems have become more prominent recently, and the football media has not been slow to point out the difficulties.

Click to continue reading...

It's not April Fools' Day, and I'm not kidding for any other reason either. See for yourself. Tony Björk found the net on the 12th minute and Antonio Inutile doubled the lead 11 minutes later. The two goals were enough to leave RoPS all alone in the relegation spot, and anger the fans. A thread demanding the resignation of CEO Jouko Kiistala was soon opened on Finland's biggest football message board, and the fans might have a point.

Click to continue reading...

TPS - IFK Mariehamn

TPS basically have the edge in this game, but it all depends on how they play. If they build on last week's win over VPS and produce another confident display, they should be able to win the game, but if they are inefficient and start pushing it, the game will turn out much more difficult, even more so as IFK Mariehamn really know how to play against "better" teams.

Click to continue reading...

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.

Click to continue reading...

JJK have had an encouraging start to their first ever campaign in the Finnish top flight. They have already managed to limit TPS, Haka and HJK to draws, and nothing suggests that they could not cause another upset against Honka, especially as Honka have had a poor start to this year's Veikkausliiga.

Click to continue reading...

Two Veikkausliiga games will be played on Saturday. Inspired JJK will entertain underachieving Honka and Inter will welome Haka to Veritas Stadion to what, somewhat surprisingly, is a clash between two table-topping teams.

NFN will be present in Turku, treating you to minute-by-minute updates of the game.

Click to continue reading...

OK, maybe I am taking a step too far in comparing this 19-year old to mr. Litmanen. Still, what a performance! Riski, or RR10, as his recently innovated nickname goes, beautifully set up TPS's 2-0 winning goal against VPS and also put the ball past Henri Sillanpää himself. He was composed with the ball, passing precisely and setting up a number of chances for his mates.

Click to continue reading...

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.

Click to continue reading...

Alright, so I've picked five winners. The standard of entries was really, really high, and the judges were all blown away by some of the work displayed. Honourable mentions should go to Venire, Sylvia, Piip, CF and Leonardo (Veikkausliiga's only Barzilian poet, as far as NFN is aware), who made the decisions very difficult, but decide we did and we now finally have our winners.

Click to continue reading...