With a new year on the horizon, the Finnish Football Show broke out it’s socially distanced champagne (Karhu A) to take a look at the highs and lows of 2020 and get out their appropriately masked crystal balls to peer into 2021. Continue reading FFS 2020: Our Year In Review
Our guest for this episode, inspired the entire FFS team to turn up for a five-way Zoom. Current Bayer Leverkusen and Finland goalkeeper, Lukáš Hrádecký, spoke to us for an hour about, well, his entire career. A career that started at TPS Turku and took him to Denmark and then Germany. Lukáš explains the perils of hearing a room with Teemu Pukki and why he turned down Manchester United.
We learn what situations give him ‘brown underpants’ and his perspective of his 3rd minute red card and following ‘walk of shame’. He also explains the camaraderie among the national team, created by a club-style atmosphere in the dressing room. He also gets his Huuhkaja mask out – no, that’s not a euphemism!
[Show Notes] Keke flies solo on this episode and speaks with Jussi from the Armada Turku ultra group. Jussi tells Keke about the different supporter groups following Inter Turku, the rivalry with ‘the other Turku club’ and dealing with heavy-handed security. He explains how they design and create their eye-catching Tifos and how it helps attract new, younger fans, both to Inter Turku and Finnish football in general. They also discuss following the Finland National team, the Huuhkajat, which is Keke’s ‘club side’ nowadays and those all-important Away Days, travelling to support their teams.
Finland’s final match of 2020 ended in defeat at the hands of a Wales side able to capitalize on Jere Uronen’s red card and some defensive hesitation. For their part the #Huuhkajat struggled for much of the match, but rallied … Continue reading Match Review: Wales 3-1 Finland
The FFS team reconvenes for the Nations League qualifying match between Wales and Finland. Winner takes all and finishes top of group B4 (although, technically, a draw is good enough for Wales.) Join Mark W, Mark H, Rich & Keke to will hear our pre-match predictions, our half-time thoughts and our full-time reaction.
On Wednesday night the Huuhkajat travel to Cardiff for their final Nations League game of the campaign. Kick-off is 21:45 Finland time. Continue reading Match preview: Wales (a)
The first in a new format of FFS show, as the team get together for the Nations League qualifying match between Bulgaria and Finland. You will hear our pre-match predictions, our half-time thoughts and our reaction at full-time.
Nations League B On Sunday evening the Huuhkajat resume their Nations League campaign at the Vasil Levski stadium in Sofia kick-off is 19:00 Finland time. Finland: The entire squad has survived a Covid-19 scare after French forward Wissam Ben Yedder … Continue reading Match Preview: Bulgaria (a)
In this episode, firstly, we look back at the historic win for Finland away to France. We then turn our attention forward to this week’s Nations League fixtures. There are two away games for the Huuhkajat, who take on Bulgaria and Wales in the final two games in the 2020 Nations League.
We’ll also look back at the Veikkausliiga season, which was cut short after the 22 ‘regular season’ games (as we’d speculated in the last show). We’ll look at the winners, the losers, the surprise packages and the predictably average.