Moldova 2 Finland 0 - the worst start imaginable

Finland's slender hopes of qualifying for Euro 2012 just took a massive kick in the teeth

Sami Hyypiä

Stuart Baxter

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By William Moore
     
      "Ran green."
      The term comes not from the Beautiful Game of football, but from horse-racing, the Sport of Kings, and it is generally applied to a two-year-old colt or filly making its first not very successful appearance on the track.
      The novice animal is all over the place, never settles into a rhythm, and spends what little talent it may have long before the winning-post.
      For the punter, the only glimmer of hope is that the horse might have needed the outing, and when it knows the ropes it may shape up rather better in its next race.
      Or then not.
     
Given the performance against Moldova in Chisinau on Friday evening, when the Finns deservedly went down 2-0 to a team that finished last in their World Cup qualifying group (behind even Luxembourg), this rather thin straw is about all the Finnish fans can pin their hopes on.
      Even so, the step up in class will have to be colossal if Finland are not to come away from Rotterdam on the end of a serious thrashing by World Cup finalists The Netherlands come Tuesday.
     
Things are made rather worse by the fact that even if this was Finland's first game in the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, it was certainly not the first serious international for most of the Finnish players.
      The goalkeeper Otto Fredrikson was the only real rookie in the squad, and he could not be blamed for either goal, and three of the starting eleven - Sami Hyypiä, Jonatan Johansson, and Jari Litmanen - have more than 340 international caps between them.
      They had no right to run as green as they did.
     
Nobody expected things would be easy in Chisinau - a bumpy pitch, a small but fanatical crowd, and opponents who were largely unknown but many of whom have been schooled in the Russian and Ukrainian leagues.
      But the visitors made things look very difficult long before captain Sami Hyypiä was dismissed for bringing down Viorel Frunze in the 36th minute.
      Frunze himself should have scored within 30 seconds of the start, and only a minute later Hyypiä uncharacteristically gifted the ball to Anatolie Doros somewhere around the penalty spot. He obligingly shot wide.
     
Many had suggested that Moldova would defend stubbornly, but they pretty soon realised that they wouldn't need to expend much energy in doing that against a completely tame and impotent Finnish attack, and they could actually think about moving forward instead.
      The first twenty minutes were painful to watch, as the Finns scrabbled to find any sort of traction or composure.
      Jari Litmanen made a few astute passes, but rather more disturbingly inaccurate ones straight to a Moldovan player's feet, Aleksei Eremenko Jr. was busy as usual but seemed incapable of releasing a decent pass to anyone ahead of him, and the defence looked anything but comfortable whenever the home side started putting numbers into the Finnish half.
     
By about half an hour, there were signs that the ship had been righted, and Finland exerted some pressure and won a couple of corners, but this was a false dawn, as Hyypiä's dismissal threw everything into flux again.
      Tim Sparv went to join Markus Heikkinen in the middle at the back, and any strength Finland might have had in midfield went with him.
      Eremenko - who had been selected by head coach Stuart Baxter to play up front instead of Mikael Forssell - kept slipping deeper to pick up the ball, and after half time when Litmanen was replaced by Kasper Hämäläinen, Eremenko dropped back still further into the slot previously occupied by Litmanen.
      There was little by way of threat in attack from either Hämäläinen on the right or Jonatan Johansson as a lone striker. Stanislav Namasco in the Moldova goal did not have a single shot on target to save all night.
     
More by luck than judgement, the Finns survived until the 69th minute without any setbacks, but substitute Alexandru Suvorov then hit a screamer of a free-kick past goalkeeper Otto Fredrikson to send the local fans wild.
      Just five minutes later Anatolie Doros said thank you very much as Petri Pasanen held off from challenging him on the edge of the box, and he smacked a smart curling shot into the bottom right corner. The ball took a fortuitous bounce off the pitch to beat Fredrikson, but it was well-struck all the same.
      At the death, Mika Väyrynen missed a sitter in front of an open goal after being set up by Forssell (on for a ten-minute cameo at the end), but it would have been merely a cosmetic adjustment to the scoreline.
     
Hyypiä admitted after the game that the Polish referee had had little option but to show him a straight red card, since Frunze was through on goal when he was brought down.
      Naturally the loss of a central defender and the reshuffling that followed from this was a factor in the defeat, but suggestions by Stuart Baxter that this dreadful result was not as rank and vile as the 1-1 draw against Liechtenstein or the defeat to Azerbaijan fell on rather deaf ears, in part because of the implications: it is hard to envisage a disastrous start like this leading to any kind of serious challenge for qualification.
      To many, the campaign is over before they have even seen a ball kicked - something that the Finnish FA may rue in lost attendance receipts.
      As one Helsingin Sanomat sportswriter noted archly, the idea of a "jumbo final" against San Marino in the Olympic Stadium on a freezing night in November is not exactly enticing.
     
Baxter came in for some swift criticism from fans on message boards, not least for his selection of Eremenko Jr. to play up front when he is more comfortable in an attacking midfield role.
      There were even some mutterings that perhaps Baxter should after all have gone to Celtic in Scotland in an advisory capacity when the subject came up last month.
      At the same time, the blame was shared equally among the players: Hyypiä and Litmanen both performed miles below their best, and there were not many others on the field who could hold their heads up, either.
      Of course, everything will be forgiven and forgotten if the team come back from Holland with an upset win, but this is the stuff dreams are made of: even a draw would be amazing enough on the basis of Friday night's débacle.
     
The other two games in Group E went very much according to form.
      Sweden beat Hungary 2-0 at home, and can be expected to score a bucketful on Tuesday at home to San Marino, who were thrashed 5-0 by the Dutch in Serravalle, where 4,000 people saw Schalke striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar warm up for the Finland match with a worrying hat-trick.
      Hungary host Moldova in Budapest on Tuesday.
      Coincidentally, it was the Hungarians who were on the losing side the last time Moldova won a competitive match - in November 2007.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish national squad begin Euro 2012 campaign with tricky game against Moldova (3.9.2010)

Links:
  Finland National Football Team (Wikipedia)
  UEFA

Helsingin Sanomat