Recent content by strand

1) The nickname of the finnish national team is "huuhkajat", meaning "the eagle-owls". At a match against Belgium about ten years ago an eagle owl flew to the stadium and caused the game to be stopped. the players were even running after the old thing trying to catch it. Finland ended up winning...

Sami will take over Zürich August 31st, the assistant manager is in charge until then. So yesterday's defeat had nothing to do with Sami. They were also down to ten men the last 20 minutes.

Some comments from Finland! :) - played for HJK as youth, was highly rated but left to Italy in 2012, there were some reports that things with HJK didn't end well - two seasons in Sampdoria's Primavera (U21 basically), regularly training with first team, playing with the Primavera - second...

A loan is actually possible. Real Madrid can't lift Eero Markkanen up to the first team in 2014, because he's 23 years old (he would have to be registered for the first team in order for that to be possible). So he's in the second team RM Castilla, and they're playing in the Spanish third...

Deila: "That's wrong because you have to take into consideration the club, not the country." Haha, if the qualification was based on club instead of country, Celtic would never make it to the group stage. They're definitely not a top 50 club in Europe. (This means that they're actually getting...

I agree with "litmanen", Jukka Raitala would not be a big improvement. He has a pretty good CV (experience from Bundesliga, La Liga and the Dutch league as well as plenty of game time for Finland), but he hasn't been able to live up to his potential. Besides, Heerenveen have a new coach, and...

Pohjanpalo is HJK's player. He's on loan in Leverkusen, and they have loaned him to Fortuna Düsseldorf for the next two seasons. Last season he was also on loan at Leverkusen, and the loaned him to Aalen, where he scored five goals but was easily the club's best player (I saw almost each of...

Hyypiä told Finnish media today that he has recommended a list of players, including some Finnish players, to the management. Hyypiä said that he knows Finnish players the best and he knows what kind of mentality they have. He said a goalkeeper and a center-back are priorities but they're...

Here are my choices of Finnish talent that Sami might bring. GK: Niki Mäenpää (VVV Venlo). Has been Finland's first goalkeeper for while, but I think is losing place to Hradecky. Good keeper, would come cheap from Venlo in Dutch 2nd league. Is expected to change club this summer. Easily enough...

You can hear the correct pronouncing here at 2min 05seconds. Hüüp ee a would be close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKT92mcPeOA#t=2m05s

After his joint coach left, it took a long time until it 'went wrong'. Hyypiä coached Leverkusen alone to their all time best autumn season, finishing 2nd in the Bundesliga by Christmas. Things went wrong shortly before and after Christmas. We can only speculate the reasons. I guess there was...

So happy about this! Sami is our (Finland's) most promising manager at the moment. There aren't many who have managed abroad. Mixu Paatelainen of course being one, but after Mixu and Hyypiä it gets a bit silent. Well Mika Lönnström was chosen as best manager of the week in Thailand last week...

Does anyone know if mills are enabled in the Championship?

Now, out of respect for Brighton's new manager, let's all take some lessons on spelling his name. It's Hyypiä. The ä can be excused, so Hyypia is allowed. But not Hypia, Hyppia, Hippia, Hypiia or anything else. I know it's tough, but with some practice you can do it! Pronouncing it is slightly...

Absolutely not true. He not only took the training sessions but also participated in them in a way that not many managers do. I think last year Leverkusen's sporting director Rudi Völler (you might have heard of him) said that Hyypiä looks so good in training that he could still play in...