Fans clash in the streets before game
Flares and bottles tossed in Mannerheimintie as rival processions head towards Olympic Stadium
Although the Finnish and Russian fans mingled quite amicably in the Olympic Stadium itself, contenting themselves with attempting to out-sing the other side, and the two sets of hardcore supporters were well separated, Wednesday's encounter did not go off without some crowd trouble.
Some Finnish and Russian fans clashed violently on Mannerheimintie while making their way to the game in the early evening.
Supporters punched and kicked one another, and threw bottles and blazing torches.
Some of the bottles were thrown at the large contingent of police deployed to keep order.
The Helsingin Sanomat photographer Heidi Piiroinen happened to be on hand close to the Crown Plaza Hotel on Mannerheimintie when one such incident went down, and she captured on film a couple of Russian fans kicking a downed Finnish supporter on the ground.
Piiroinen was unable to say how the fight had started.
By midnight the police had detained 35 fans, most of them Russians.
Eight more were taken away during the game itself. The police had no information on any serious injuries, and nearly all those detained were released in the morning, with the Russians being immediately boarded onto their coaches to head home.
The worst clashes took place between 6 and 8 p.m. as the rival groups - numbering several thousands - were making their way to the Stadium.
The vanguard of the Finnish procession, which started from the Kamppi Center, caught up with the tail of a Russian group that had marched from the Senate Square.
The two sides each provoked the other, and succeeded in stirring things up, according to Juha Hänninen of the Helsinki Police Department.
The game ended at arouind 22:30, and by midnight the police had not had any reports of any major post-match skirmishes, since the Finns seemed unwilling to look for trouble on the back of a defeat that left little to complain about.
Earlier on, the march up Mannerheimintie had been expected to be a flashpoint, and police had divided the street with their vehicles, putting the Finns on the Töölönlahti/Finlandia Hall side and the Russians on the other.
Hundreds of riot police were deployed and a Border Guard helicopter hovered overhead.
Those who were taken away were herded into a Helsinki City Transport bus parked by the National Museum.
The flares and fireworks that were tossed in the Olympic Stadium itself will probably prove costly to the Finnish FA.
Apparently the Austrian referee went over to the touchline at one point and had a word with officials, to the effect that if it didn't stop, he could abandon the entire proceedings.
It didn't stop, with new incidents accompanying each of the Russian goals and the arrival of a massed phalanx of riot police about ten minutes before the end of the game, but the match nevertheless went on.
The Finnish FA will carry the can, even though it was the Russian fans who did the throwing. It is the responsibility of the hosts to ensure security.
Clearly even though there were bag- and person-checks at the gates, they did not do their job well enough in some cases.
Fines may follow from FIFA or UEFA.
The match was exceptional in Finnish terms: never before have so many travelling fans homed in on Helsinki for a football match.
Good weather beforehand and the ability of the holidaying Russian fans to get well tanked up in the bars probably added fuel to the fire, and the fact that most Finns had to work on Thursday was a reason for the relatively quiet night that followed the game.
More on this subject:
 Finland 0 Russia 3 - "Déjà vu all over again"
A full house in prospect for arrival of Russia
Helsingin Sanomat
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