European Championships qualifying match: Finland 1 Portugal 1 (1-1)

Who'd have thought a draw against a World Cup semi-finalist would seem almost disappointing?

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By William Moore
     
      Finland's national team drew 1-1 with Portugal in their second match in Group A of the qualifiers for the 2008 European Championships, in front of a sell-out crowd of just over 38,000 in the Olympic Stadium. Both goals came in the first half of a game that was dominated as much by the referee as by any of the 22 players on the field.
      It is probably a reflection of the raised expectations after the 3-1 away win in Poland last weekend that many in the crowd - and on the pitch - seemed disappointed with taking only a point from the 4th-placed team in the summer's World Cup Finals and the runners-up in the 2004 European Championships. Portugal are ranked 8th in the world at present - and the Finns have lost to worse sides in the past.
     
However, some could argue that the loss of Portugal's defender Ricardo Costa after 53 minutes, when he got a second yellow card, was all that stood between Finland and a slow, inevitable defeat of the old school.
      Though they often enjoyed only cosmetic dominance of possession, just before that dismissal the Portuguese strikers gave one the edgy feeling that at any moment they could string together enough slick passes to carve open a disciplined but slightly flat-footed Finnish defence more than just the once.
     
The opening exchanges were indicative of what was to come. There were long periods of the visitors stroking the ball elegantly around the park, with the Finns content to let them weave pretty patterns as long as they did not come too close to Jussi Jääskeläinen's goal.
      Then the Finns would break and attack in much more determined Route 1 fashion, all too often with a long ball towards the head of Jonatan Johansson, who worked hard up front throughout the first half but got very little change in the air out of the Portuguese central defenders.
      It was annoyingly as though there was no Plan B when Plan A routinely failed to achieve very much.
Joonas Kolkka was one victim: he complained after the game that in the early stages not enough passes were fanned out wide along the ground by way of an alternative.
     
At set pieces, however, the home side nearly always seemed to pose a more potent threat than their visitors, and Sami Hyypiä twice went close with headers inside the first ten minutes, from a flighted Jari Litmanen free-kick and a corner.
      Both times the Liverpool centre-back seemed to make acres of space to work with. On the second occasion he was only denied by an acrobatic save from Ricardo in the Portuguese goal.
     
Finland broke the deadlock after 23 minutes with an extremely well-constructed move down the left that involved Toni Kallio, captain Litmanen, and then Joonas Kolkka. Kolkka neatly nutmegged Ricardo Costa and crossed low from the byline for Johansson to thump the ball into the roof of the net.
      The Portuguese were spurred by this, and the reply came three minutes before the break when Deco, a constant menace in midfield, split the Finnish defence with an adroit pass to Nuno Gomes, who gave Jääskeläinen no chance. It was his 25th goal in 56 international appearances.
     
The Portuguese had their tails up immediately after the restart, and there were a number of anxious moments as the Finns temporarily lapsed into their too-familiar sin of being unable to hold the ball up long enough in midfield to give their defence a moment's breathing-space.
      Christiano Ronaldo was all over the place, in good and in bad, making mazy runs on and off the ball and then collapsing dramatically when challenged. It is to the credit of the Finnish defenders and their positional sense that this prodigiously gifted player did not make more impression on the game.
      His wings were somewhat clipped in any case on 53 minutes when Costa brought down Johansson for his second yellow card and an early shower. With only ten men, the visitors were always at risk of being stretched on the break, and they grew more cautious going forward.
      The removal of Nuno Gomes for João Moutinho after three-quarters of an hour settled matters: Ronaldo was pushed up front more or less alone, and his threat waned appreciably. Portugal did not actually get a shot on goal in the second half. So much for pretty patterns.
     
In the period between the sending-off and Nuno Gomes's departure, the Finns - presumably given a choking-off at half-time - had also upped their game and added some width and variety to their attacking, and Teemu Tainio went close with a good shot, though the attack was eventually snuffed out in an offside decision.
      Johansson was replaced by the rather more bulky Shefki Kuqi after an hour. Kuqi got in one reasonable header, but it floated past the far post.
      Litmanen tested Ricardo with a low free-kick that won only a corner, and then Finland took off Joonas Kolkka in favour of Alexei Eremenko Jr.
      The youngster's appearance caused a few grumpy noises in the stands following some ill-judged remarks he had made in the Russian press about preferring to play in - and for - Russia (the land of his birth), but he probably endeared himself to just as many people for picking up a yellow card after clattering into Ronaldo just before the final whistle.
      The Finns had a last rattle of the Portuguese cage in injury time, racking up their fifth corner, but a late winner would probably have been more than they deserved.
     
Portugal's Brazilian coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who also had some injury problems to contend with going into this match, had insisted beforehand that he would be happy with a point in Helsinki.
      He got one, and he can probably take comfort from the fact that his squad dodged a bullet in their first competitive outing without having some sage old heads like midfielder Figo and striker Pauleta around. Both retired from international duty after the World Cup.
      His players did not always look 100% match-fit, but the side will presumably get better as the new faces bed in and the qualification progresses.
     
For coach Roy Hodgson and his Finnish charges, the result produced mixed feelings. If they had been asked a week ago whether they would settle for four points after playing Poland away and Portugal at home, they would probably have snatched at the offer with both hands.
      After beating Poland, the appetite naturally grew. It was apparently Hodgson's wish to get two strong opponents out of the way quickly, perhaps in the hope of catching them cold. It looks to have borne fruit, though there is a very long and rocky road to go yet before anyone can talk about qualification.
      After the match, Hodgson and others were at pains to keep Finnish feet on the ground, focusing attention on the need to collect several more points from the awkward upcoming trips to places east. Finland next travel to Armenia and Kazakhstan in October.
     
Even though they missed out on a second big scalp on Wednesday, Finland still lead their group on goal difference, helped by the 1-1 draw between Poland and Serbia in Warsaw.
      Serbia, too, have four points from two starts, as do Belgium, but the Belgians got theirs from the rather less illustrious opposition of Armenia (1-0 away) and Kazakhstan (0-0 at home).
     
The Austrian referee Konrad Plautz will not have made many Finnish friends. Though he reportedly came with the reputation of a man who has no truck with players diving and showing acting skills worthy of a patient in an emergency room soap-opera, he seemed to get sucked in to the Portuguese falling-over style of play, all too fresh in the memory from the last World Cup in Germany.
      In any event, Mr. Plautz awarded a rash of free-kicks against the home team for seemingly innocuous challenges. Clearly the Finnish crowd had been watching the summer's antics intently on television, as they showed precious little sympathy for the writhing players in red.
     
Football culture in Finland moves ahead in small steps. The capacity crowd made enough noise throughout not to repeat the embarrassment of being out-sung and out-shouted by several hundred Dutch or Welsh travelling supporters, but in this promised land for choirs, it is apparently too much yet to expect the fans to sing - even when they are winning.
      In actual fact, the chances of Portugal's supporters outdoing the Finns in anything were minimal, as for some reason they were very thin on the ground.
      There were, however, a great many more suspiciously blonde teenage girls to be seen, taking pictures on mobile phones and sporting 'C. Ronaldo' Portugal shirts.
      What they made of the persistent booing and "ladyboy" taunts directed towards their talented hero every time he fell over is a mystery - but perhaps their big sisters had warned them about this from their own experiences wearing a David Beckham shirt a few short years ago.
     
     
Finland:
      Jussi Jääskeläinen
      Toni Kallio
      Sami Hyypiä
      Hannu Tihinen
      Petri Pasanen
      Joonas Kolkka (81. Alexei Eremenko Jr. - booked, 92.)
      Teemu Tainio
      Mika Väyrynen
      Jari Litmanen (booked, 30.)
      Markus Heikkinen (booked, 66.)
      Jonatan Johansson (64. Shefki Kuqi)
     
     
Substitutes not used:
      Mikko Kavén (gk), Juha Pasoja, Jari Ilola, Mika Nurmela, Mikael Forssell.
     
Coach: Roy Hodgson
     
Referee: Konrad Plautz, Austria
     
Attendance: 38,015


Previously in HS International Edition:
  European Championships qualifying opener: Poland 1 Finland 3 (0-0) (4.9.2006)

Links:
  Finnish FA - match statistics and line-ups (.rtf file)
  UEFA

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