Cheeky Hannu Tihinen goal sets up Champions League shock

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There are now two Finnish footballers who can quite reasonably claim to have scored a blinding goal at the San Siro in Milan, one of the game's great arenas.
      The first was Mika Aaltonen, playing for Turun Palloseura in 1987.
      He let fly with an absolute screamer from 35 metres that gave TPS an unlikely 1-0 victory over Inter in the UEFA Cup.
      Sadly, Inter won the return leg in Turku 2-0, but Aaltonen at least got signed by the club he had humiliated in front of their own fans.
      Then again, he never actually appeared in an Inter shirt.
     
The second laureate is the FC Zürich captain and central defender Hannu Tihinen, a staple of the Finnish national squad, who last night downed mighty AC Milan in a European Champions League fixture.
      Tihinen showed considerable acrobatic skills for a man of his size, connecting with a back-heeled volley direct from a corner after just ten minutes had been played.
     
The term "ballerina" is hard to apply to a 1.90-tall defender, but in all honesty, that's pretty much what it looked like as Tihinen took off and clipped the ball past a startled and rather disgruntled Marco Storari in the Milan goal.
      Despite coming under considerable pressure from the hosts, including an injury-time shot that bounced back off the post, Zürich held on to claim a famous upset victory and wipe away some of the hurt from the 5-2 drubbing they received at home to Real Madrid two weeks ago.
      The visitors' goalkeeper Johnny Leoni, who also played in the Real Madrid game, could claim equal bragging rights for the win, as he stopped everything that was hit in his direction.
     
Zürich were pegged as the rank outsiders in the group, but they are at least now three points better off than Marseille, who went down to their second defeat last night, 3-0 away to Real Madrid.       


Links:
  And here is Mika Aaltonen´s goal - type in Mika Aaltonen in the "ETSI" box at top right to bring up the video. goal at 0:40
  Hannu Tihinen (Wikipedia)
  YouTube: AC Milan 0 FC Zürich 1

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