Finland draw Holland and Sweden in European Championship 2012 qualifiers

Group provides less of a burden on travelling fans than in many recent competitions

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There may be those who say we should get this year's World Cup out of the way before worrying about future tournaments, but football never sleeps, and on Sunday the draw was made for the qualifying stage of the 2012 UEFA European Championships, the finals of which will be held among 16 teams in Poland and Ukraine.
     
Finland found itself in basket number three for the draw, which means that there were two stronger seeded teams that will have to be overcome if the Finns wish to win their group and qualify automatically.
      The two teams in question are The Netherlands and Sweden.
      Finland was drawn into Group E, and in addition to the Dutch and our dear neighbours to the west, the Finns will have to face Hungary, Moldova, and San Marino.
     
The initial impressions were that it could have been a lot worse in many respects - financially, in terms of travelling difficulties for the fans, and even in the sense of how difficult this group will be to qualify from.
      Obviously it WILL be difficult.
      The Dutch went through their World Cup qualifying group like a hot knife through butter, and the Finns have less than happy memories of the last time the teams met in a serious competition: Finland lost away 3-1 after taking an early lead, and collapsed ignominiously at home to lose 4-0, a result that lost the then coach Antti Muurinen his job.
     
Sweden may not be in South Africa this year, but they are battle-hardened World Cup finalists and the last time they faced Finland in a qualifying campaign they went on to reach the finals (in 1994 in the USA) and actually claimed the bronze medals.
      Finland has not beaten Sweden in a full international since 1966.
     
Hungary will be a welcome visitor, if only to wipe out some of the bitterest memories in Finnish sporting history - it was against the Hungarians that Finland conceded a tragic-comic last-ditch equaliser in Helsinki on October 11th, 1997.
      The farcical goal meant that Finland could kiss goodbye to a chance of a play-off game to proceed to the 1998 World Cup.
     
Moldova provides the only headache for travelling fans - the other matches are all relatively easy of access and a large contingent will be expected to travel to Sweden and to Holland, as Finland's national team hopefully continues to attract serious support.
      San Marino, too, will provide an opportunity for a short holiday in Italy and the prospect of three points from one of Europe's footballing minnows.
      This time, with the exception of Moldova, there are none of those long and arduous trips to Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan that have become a familiar feature of recent campaigns.
     
At the same time, the Finnish FA will be pleased that they have got at least two big ties to fill the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki - Holland and Sweden will be certain sell-out games.
      Equally, there will be hopefully no repeat of the problems encountered when Russia arrived and there was violence on the streets before the match.
     
The Finnish coach Stuart Baxter attended the draw in Warsaw and came away with the view that it was an interesting group with no clear second-place candidates (the Dutch are favourites to qualify as group winners).
      He believes his own extensive experience of coaching in Sweden could come in handy, but then again the Swedes also know his style.
     
The order of matches will be decided in due course and games will get under way in September and run through to November 2011.
      The winners of each of the nine groups will go through automatically, along with the best runner-up. Then the other eight 2nd-placed teams will play off for the remaining four places.
      Poland and Ukraine naturally qualify for the tournament as hosts.
     
Group H seems to be a veritable Scandinavian contest, with Denmark, Norway, and Iceland all going into battle against Portugal and Cyprus.
      Estonia, meanwhile have a tough task in Group C, which includes Italy, Serbia, and Slovenia, who all qualified for South Africa 2010.
      This time around it was the Germans (drawn in Group A) who got the short straw in terms of travelling: not only must they visit Turkey, but they also got the long trips to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan for their trouble.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland 0 Holland 4 - a high price to pay for squandered opportunities (9.6.2005)
  Oh Nooooooo!!! What is Finland´s worst sporting memory? (22.1.2008)

Links:
  UEFA

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