Mikael Forssell has had enough of warming the substitutes' bench

Finnish striker may be facing a move away from Birmingham City

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By Arno Seiro in Birmingham
     
      "It's no use my getting frustrated. You just have to take a couple of deep breaths and shut out thoughts like that", sighs Mikael Forssell when we meet in a Japanese restaurant in England's second city.
      The Birmingham City and Finland striker is pondering the opening weeks of the current season, during which he has spent more than half of the minutes played in sitting on the bench.
     
This is the second successive season when the 25-year-old has found his playing-time rationed in Birmingham. Last season his pace was reduced by the long, slow recovery from a serious knee operation that had kept him out of football for six months from September 2004. This time around he has not been hampered by injury worries, but the Birmingham City manager Steve Bruce has still been reluctant to name the Finn in his starting eleven.
      After eight matches in the Championship [the second tier in English football after the Premiership], the team are lying second, with five wins, two draws, and only one defeat.
     
"I'm naturally disappointed with the fact that I have not been playing much. I understand that the manager wants to use strikers who are in form and playing well, but what I don't get is that the club don't allow me to go elsewhere, but instead keep me warming the bench", says Forssell, who has scored once in the League this season.
      At the end of August, before the transfer window closed, Forssell's services were enquired after by Premiership side Blackburn Rovers and by HSV of Hamburg in the German Bundesliga.
      City were nevertheless reluctant to part with Forssell, who notched up 19 goals for them in the 2003-2004 season when he was on loan from Chelsea.
      All the same, a parting of the ways may be in prospect when the window opens again in January, if the Finn does not get more time on the park than he is enjoying at present.
      "I haven't spoken about the matter with the club, but if I'm not getting a game, then I'm sure all parties will be interested in doing something about it", says Forssell.
     
In his own view, Forssell believes he needs only one thing to get back to his former sharpness.
      "I have to get five to ten straight games under my belt."
      The reality for Forssell has been rather different. He has not played a full 90 minutes in any of the side's ten League or League Cup matches this season. On three occasions he has remained on the subs' bench throughout, just as he did for all but a few minutes in both of Finland's European Championships qualifiers at the beginning of September.
      "When you get on the field in a situation like that there is a huge sense of tension around, and you cannot relax into the game", says Forssell of the pressures of having to conjure something up quickly.
     
The Finn lives football, heart and soul. This brings its own dangers.
      "I know that I'm not going to get results by getting all wired up. But then again it's equally no good if I try to be completely relaxed, because then it gives the impression that I don't care and that I'm not giving everything I've got", frets Forssell.
      One of Forssell's role-models in the Brazilian Real Madrid striker Ronaldo. Ronaldo interests Forssell not just because of his talents on the ball.
      "He keeps smiling even when things are going badly for him out there. The Brazilians seem to think that life is good enough when they are able to play football, and they are able to take things in a more relaxed fashion."
     
It may be that Forssell has yet to find the right mental approach to the awkward situation he finds himself in, but on the physical side he works without compromise, as he always has.
      "My enthusiasm for training is quite incredible. I want to go to bed at night knowing that I have done everything I can do", says Forssell, who is famous for constantly doing his own extra training exercises.
      He wants to be completely ready when the call to arms comes. Whenever that might be.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.9.2006
     
On Saturday, Birmingham City travelled to Leeds and went down 3-2, suffering only their second defeat of the season. Mikael Forssell was named among the substitutes, but did not get a game.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mikael Forssell joins Birmingham City on three-year contract (13.6.2005)

ARNO SEIRO / Helsingin Sanomat