Nil-nil. For the fourth time of asking

Gala match between Finland and Spain provides thin pickings for thin crowd

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Palloliitto is the name for Finland’s Football Association. The august body chalked up 100 years in existence earlier this year, and to celebrate the occasion a gala match was arranged on Wednesday. The opposition chosen was Spain, and the Spanish team arrived to play in the Olympic Stadium.
      Friendly matches can sometimes be free-flowing, high-scoring affairs that are the stuff of nightmares for team coaches, but Finland turned in a very disciplined and very routine performance, since they held the Spaniards to a goalless draw.
     
Yes, that is right. Nil-nil. A familiar scoreline to many, since Finland have recently played three matches in the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign with exactly the same result - against Serbia, Poland, and most recently against Belgium in Brussels last weekend.
      There is not much to be said about the game. The 11,000 people (the stadium was only around one-third full) who paid high prices for the privilege of seeing it may be wondering what was in their minds. They could have stayed at home and watched England lose 2-1 in Moscow instead. At least there were some goals in that game.
     
What was nice to see is that Finland do still have two world-class goalkeepers, as the former No.1 Antti Niemi, who handed over the top job some time ago, stood in for a rested Jussi Jääskeläinen and made what was probably a one-off comeback cameo appearance. He produced two important saves to keep the score level.
      In other respects it was a rather drab affair, made even drabber by the news filtering in that in the real world Portugal and Serbia had both beaten their opponents - Serbia scored six against Azerbaijan - and in so doing made Finland’s task of progressing from Euro 2008 Qualfiying Group A that little bit more difficult.
     
The Finnish defence coped with the Spanish forwards adequately enough, but the goal-scoring abilities of the hosts were restricted to just one shot on target.
      This was hardly very encouraging for the two upcoming games that do matter: Azerbaijan at home and Portugal away. Both these games in November must be won if Finland are to have any hope of going to the Euro 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland.
     
On a brighter note, while the first team were playing their sixth hour of goalless football, the Under-21s were putting together their fourth maximum in four games in the European Championships qualifiers.
      They went to Kaunas and returned with a 1-0 victory over Lithuania, to go alongside previous home wins against Scotland and Slovenia and a 1-0 victory away to Denmark. This means that at the halfway stage in their group they are five points clear of the field and looking in very good shape.
      So the future at least looks fairly encouraging. Sooner or later they will be getting the call to step up to the top level - especially if Finland do not qualify for Euro 2008. In that case, it is quite likely we will see some of the old warhorses deciding to call it a day.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Belgium 0 Finland 0: The mountain just got higher (15.10.2007)

Links:
  UEFA Under-21 Championship

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