World Cup Qualification, Wales 0 Finland 2: Age cannot wither him...

Mature Finnish performance brings three points from must-win encounter in Cardiff

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By William Moore
     
      The short story is that Finland went to Cardiff on Saturday for a must-win World Cup qualifier against Wales in UEFA Group 4, and came home with three points after goals from Jonatan Johansson and Shefki Kuqi at the end of each half.
      In front of a disappointing crowd (for the Welsh at least - there were nearly two thousand travelling Finnish fans who did their best to make some noise in the huge Millennium Stadium), the Finnish squad started very cautiously.
      It looked for a while as though the hosts, whose side was appreciably younger and less “experienced”, would cause problems for the likes of Liverpool stalwart Sami Hyypiä and Hannu Tihinen in the Finnish defence.
      However, the Welsh squandered whatever territorial advantage they had in the first half-hour, and Jussi Jääskeläinen in the Finnish goal actually had a relatively quiet time of it.
     
Wales were made to pay dearly after 43 minutes when Jari Litmanen collected from Alexei Eremenko Jr. and dinked a sublime ball through to Johansson behind the Welsh defence, and the Hibernian striker - who has been struggling to get a game at club level - slipped the ball past the onrushing Wayne Hennessey in the Welsh goal and watched it trundle in off the near post.
     
Barely a minute later, it should probably have been 2-0 and Goodnight Wales, as Litmanen linked up on the left with Roman Eremenko, whose cross found Mikael Forssell all by himself on the penalty spot.
      Forssell’s effort was blotted out by a challenge from Gareth Bale that might on another day have produced a penalty.
     
What coach Stuart Baxter said to his players at the interval is not known, but in any event the Finland that emerged in the second half had considerably more verve and created more than enough chances to have made this a very ugly defeat indeed for Wales.
      Forssell was guilty of several misses, though on one occasion he was denied by a splendid reaction save from Hennessey, and Tihinen could have had a goal from a header that was cleared off the line with the keeper well beaten.
      Petri Pasanen also went close with a sweet left-foot strike that was goalbound but for a desperate lunge from James Collins.
      While rueing the fact that the scoreline wasn’t four or five, the fact that the Finns created ten shots on goal - most of them in the second half - was encouraging. On any normal day, Forssell would have put at least one or two away.
     
While the Welsh should have been upping the pace to get back on terms, they looked increasingly like they were the ones with the tired legs.
      The allegedly elderly Finnish squad (average age the wrong side of thirty) were scampering around like spring lambs, dominating the midfield and allowing the back four the sort of lazy sunny afternoon runabout central defenders - and worried club managers like Rafa Benitez of Liverpool - just love.
      Forssell was eventually substituted a few moments before time, signalling the arrival of an in-form and impatient Shefki Kuqi, who duly scored within a minute of his introduction.
      He was released on the left by a good through ball from Roman Eremenko that allowed him yards of space, and the Crystal Palace striker cut in and showed a more polished side of his game as he slotted neatly past Hennessey into the far corner.
     
Although Jari Litmanen did not get on the scoresheet, there was little disputing the fact that he was the man of the hour, making his 121st appearance in a Finnish shirt.
      This guy is a piece of work and no mistake. Regarded by the local fans with something bordering on awe and known simply as “The King”, Litmanen is old enough at 38 to be running a country pub or managing Stockport County.
      There have been times in the past few years, in the sunset of his career, when injuries have made The King appear more like one of those exiled Eastern European potentates without a crown.
     
Those who wrote him off as someone who was "famous long ago" (Litmanen was a leading light in the Ajax side that won the Champions League in 1995, and he also represented Barcelona and Liverpool) might now think again.
      He has naturally lost a lot of pace on and off the ball, but his eye for the game and for finding players in space is still second-to-none.
      After he had spent the first half-hour getting his motor running - Litmanen is more your VW diesel than your Lamborghini these days - he came into his own in the second half and sprayed passes imperially all over the place, making the Welsh midfield instantly look ponderous and vulnerable.
      Astonishingly, for one who has not played much serious match football for years rather than months, he stuck at it right to the end, and was only taken off in added time after Kuqi had made the game safe.
     
After the match, Stuart Baxter, not a man usually prone to outbursts of emotion, put his arm around the veteran playmaker and his private comments were probably not so very different from those of the awestruck fans.
      At the post-match press conference, Baxter went on in the same vein:
      "Jari was outstanding. He is in the process of re-inventing himself at 38. He may not be able to do the runs he used to a few years ago, but he can still pass the ball and he dominated the game. He is an amazing person. He has been a great servant to Finnish football, a great player. Maybe people thought he would be coming to the end [of his career], but he had been working hard to be fit for this match because his Finnish club were out of season. He trained on his own for some while and did a lot of work to be fit for this one."
     
Still, it would be churlish to single out Litmanen in a performance that was one of the brightest showings away from home by a Finnish side in a long time.
      The return after a lengthy absence of Alexei Eremenko Jr. can also be counted something of a success, although he, too, took a while to get settled into a midfield role.
      His younger brother Roman is growing into a valuable partner and heir-apparent to Litmanen, and once they’d got their heads in front the Finns really never looked like conceding anything at the back, as Hyypiä and Co. kept Jussi Jääskeläinen well protected.
      The Bolton keeper only had one serious save to make all match, and came out well to snuff out Jason Koumas’s effort at the near post.
      The Welsh captain Craig Bellamy made several disparaging remarks about the Finnish team in a petulant outburst immediately after the game, and he included goalscorer Jonatan Johansson in his comments, but on this occasion Johansson worked hard and deserved his reward, his 18th goal for Finland.
      As for Bellamy's own colleagues, they were roundly booed off the park by those Welsh fans who had doggedly stayed to the end.
     
By that time, the only singing in the Millennium Stadium was coming from the members of the Finnish National Team Supporters' Club (SMJK), who were suitably thanked for their vocal efforts by the players.
      It was all a far, far cry from the night in September 2002, when a thousand or so Welsh fans tucked in the corner sang a full house in the Olympic Stadium into the ground. Things have moved on since then, and that will not happen again when Wales turn up in the capital in October.
     
In truth, the result does not make life a great deal easier for Finland, but it certainly knocks any hopes of qualifying from Group 4 that the Welsh might have had firmly on the head.
      Finland have seven points from four games (a stirring 3-3 draw at home to Germany, an iffy 1-0 home win over Azerbaijan, and a less-said-the-better 3-0 defeat to Russia in Moscow before this win), and will next play Liechtenstein and Russia at home on June 6th and 10th respectively.
      In practice, nothing less than the maximum six points and a hefty thumping of the visitors from Liechtenstein will do for Stuart Baxter and his men, as Germany look hot favourites to win the group and Russia are probably an equally sound bet to take the play-off place on offer for the runners-up.
     
The Russians achieved a routine 2-0 victory at home to Azerbaijan on Saturday to take them to nine points from four games, while Germany scored four without reply at home to the minnows from Liechtenstein.
      Germany have 13 points from their five games so far, and if they beat Wales in Cardiff on Wednesday they will really fancy their chances of wrapping things up before the end of the campaign.
      Before the brace of June qualifiers, Finland play a friendly against Norway in Oslo on Wednesday, in which Baxter may be tempted to blood one or two of his younger players*.
     
Perhaps as much as the glimmer of qualification hope provided by the win in Cardiff, the Finnish FA will have been heartened - in these straitened economic times - by the sure knowledge that in winning on Saturday, the team added a few thousand takers for tickets for the two upcoming games in June.
      Defeat to Wales would have left the Olympic Stadium very empty indeed for the arrival of less-than-sexy Liechtenstein, but now there will be more reason to turn up, and a full house of 35,000 is almost guaranteed for the Russia game.
     
     
Wales 0 Finland 2 (0-1)
     
Scorers: 43. Johansson; 90+1. Kuqi
     
Finland: 1-Jussi Jääskeläinen (booked, 63.); 3-Toni Kallio, 4-Sami Hyypiä (captain), 5-Hannu Tihinen, 2-Petri Pasanen; 6-Alexei Eremenko (78. 8-Daniel Sjölund), 15-Markus Heikkinen (booked, 49.), 7-Roman Eremenko, 16-Jonatan Johansson; 10-Jari Litmanen (90. 11-Roni Porokara); Mikael Forssell (89. 18-Shefki Kuqi).
     
Substitutes not used: 12-Niki Mäenpää, 13-Niklas Moisander, 14-Ari Nyman, 17-Tim Sparv.
     
Coach: Stuart Baxter
     
Wales: 1- Wayne Hennessey; 3-Gareth Bale, 6-Lewin Nyatanga, 5-James Collins, 2- Chris Gunter; 10-Joe Ledley (71. 18-Robert Earnshaw), 11-David Edwards (56. 16-Aaron Ramsey), 4-Carl Fletcher (65. 17-Carl Robinson), 7-Simon Davies; 9-Jason Koumas; 8-Craig Bellamy (captain).
     
Substitutes not used: 12-Boaz Myhill, 13-David Cotterill, 14-Ched Evans, 15-Ashley Williams.
     
Coach: John Toshack
     
Referee: Eduardo Iturralde Gonzales (Spain)
     
Attendance: 22,604 (Millennium Stadium capacity 74,500)
     
     
*Note (30.3.): Stuart Baxter will be obliged to make some changes on Wednesday against Norway. Sami Hyypiä picked up a slight knock to his knee against Wales and is out of action, while goalkeeper Jussi Jääskeläinen had already agreed that he would sit this game out. He will be replaced by Magnus Bahne. Two other squad members - Kari Arkivuo and Niklas Moisander - have returned to their clubs by prior agreement. Toni Kuivasto will be coming in to shore up the defence and Peter Kopteff will join the midfield.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Slimmed-down Alexei Eremenko Jr. set to make a return to Stuart Baxter´s national football squad (17.3.2009)

See also:
  VIDEO: Goals and highlights from Wales vs. Finland

Links:
  FIFA World Cup 2010
  Finland National Football Team (Wikipedia)

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