Jari Litmanen’s career to continue in Finnish top division

FC Lahti hope to improve on last year's 3rd place, but HJK and Honka are league favourites

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Finnish footballing legend Jari Litmanen, 38, will continue to play for FC Lahti in Finland’s top division Veikkausliiga.
      Litmanen has extended his contract with the Lahti side by one year.
      In the six Lahti FC games that he appeared in last season, Litmanen scored three times and added a further three assists.
     
At the end of the season the Lahti side were awarded the bronze medals in the Finnish Veikkausliiga, which in turn opens doors to qualification games for European football this season.
      “A challenging year is ahead of us. The team is motivated to fight for the similar kind of results that we produced last year. In addition, our side will now face its first-ever European encounters”, said Litmanen.
     
Litmanen was born in Lahti and began his illustrious international career (Ajax, Barcelona, Liverpool) with Reipas Lahti, before joining HJK Helsinki and then Myllykosken Pallo (MyPa) prior to heading abroad.
      Reipas and local rivals Kuusysi joined forces in 1996 to create FC Lahti.
      The club will naturally be delighted with getting Litmanen's services on the eve of a new season, but FC Lahti will have their work cut out to emulate last year's performance.
     
As the new season gets under way this weekend, the two clear favourites for the title are HJK Helsinki and Honka of Espoo.
      HJK, coached by former Finland coach Antti Muurinen, are smarting from a less than inspiring 4th place last year, and will start their campaign at home to KuPS of Kuopio.
      Honka finished runners-up to Inter of Turku last season, and they begin their season "at home" to FC Lahti on Sunday.
      The reason for the quotation-marks is that Honka's ground in Tapiola is being refurbished, and will not be available until the end of June.
      Their programme has been arranged such that seven of their first ten matches will be played away, and home games will be played in the Finnair Stadium in Helsinki, actually HJK's home ground.
      By contrast, after the Tapiola ground is made ready, Honka will play five straight games at home in August and Septermber.
      They will need some good results on the road before then to have a chance of making up ground at the end of the season.
     
Last year's champions Inter Turku, TPS Turku, and Tampere United are all expected to put in a strong showing this year.
      TamU certainly have something to prove: after two successive titles in 2006 and 2007 they dived down to seventh last year. 
     
Fourteen teams in all will contest this year's Veikkausliiga, with the most northerly club being RoPS of Rovaniemi and the most westerly Mariehamn IFK from the Åland Islands.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Jari Litmanen´s return on hold after mild heart symptoms (25.2.2008)
  Litmanen facing new challenges in Germany (8.2.2005)

Links:
  Veikkausliiga (Wikipedia)
  Jari Litmanen (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat