This week we look at Finland's National Team progress in the European Championship qualifying and their national top division league—the Naisten Liiga, as well as PK-35's attempt to advance to the Final 32 in the European Women's Champions League.
Finland is poised to qualify for their fourth consecutive European Championships next summer in the Netherlands. After not qualifying for 8 Euro final events from 1984 through 2001, Finland made the semifinals in England in their first appearance in 2005, advanced to the quarterfinals at home in 2009, but didn't pass the group stage in 2013 in Sweden. In three Euro finals appearances, they have a very solid 3-3-5 (W-D-L) record all-time. They have yet to qualify for a Women's World Cup or Olympic Games finals however.
At the present time, Finland looks well placed to make it four Euro Finals tournaments in a row as they sit second in Group B to Spain (18 points). They are 4-1-1 on 13 points, ahead of the Republic of Ireland by four points and a game in hand, who cannot catch them for second. Portugal (7 pts) and Montenegro (0 points) are also mathematically eliminated from advancing. The six best group runners-up qualify directly for the Netherlands next summer. Italy (12 points) and Russia (11 points) are below Finland (in second place in other groups) with two games left. If Italy and Russia are the lowest ranked second place sides, they would playoff for one final Euros spot. Finland plays their last two matches away on September 16 and 20 in Portugal and Spain respectively. The Iberian peninsula sides are the only two teams in their group that Finland has dropped points to, at home (Spain 1-2) and (Portugal 0-0).
Finnish National Team Players that are with clubs abroad include: goalkeeper Tinja-Riikka Korpela (30), who is with Frauen-Bundesliga power Bayern Munich of Germany. Those based in Sweden—a long time destination of Finnish players--include defender Maija Saari and Tuija Hyyrynen of Umea, midfielder Annika Kukkonen of Sunnana and forward Linda Sallstrom of Linkoping, who leads the national team in scoring during the qualifiers with 3 goals in 6 games. Defender Anna Westerlund plays with LSK in Norway and midfielder Nora Heroum plays with Danish power Fortuna. Forward Sanni Franssi (21) plays in Switzerland with Zurich. Finland's coach is Andree Jeglertz of Sweden, who led Umea to the European Women's Champions League title in 2004.
Jeglertz's assistant coach is Englishman Gary Williams, who joined the national setup in early 2015 after success with Aland United, the club from the autonomous islands of Finland where Swedish is most commonly spoken. He led the side to the league crown in 2013 and fell just short of a repeat in 2014 as PK-35 Vantaa pipped them on the final day of the season (see more below on Aland United). Williams, who played collegiately at Lindsey Wilson College (Kentucky) in the U.S., met his wife--a native of Finland—in college and they chose to settle in her homeland.
In the Naisten Liiga, two-time reigning Champions PK-35 Vantaa won the regular season crown and has advanced with 5 other teams into the championship round (one game each against the other 5 sides), while the four bottom teams play a relegation round, with the last place side automatically relegated and the second to bottom team playing a survival playoff with the second-place team in the 12 team second division Ykkonen. PK-35 Vantaa has won five of the six championships since 2010, with Aland United interrupting the string in 2013 to go with a title in 2009. HJK Helsinki has 22 titles dating back to 1971, followed by PK-35 Vantaa's five titles, three by FC Honda and Alland United's two wins.
Nigeria's Cynthia Uwak won the goal scoring title in the 2013 title winning campaign for Aland United with 18 goals. In 2012, American Manya Makoski (ex-Arizona State, L.A. Sol and Atlanta Beat in WPS and Sky Blue FC in NWSL) scored 31 goals in 25 matches for Aland, while compatriot Felica Schroeder-Waldock (ex-Purdue University who played for the U.S. in the Deaf World Cup in Turkey in 2012) won the title in 2011 with 22 goals, also for Alland. Last season Heidi Kollanen of Ilves led the league in scoring with 24 goals in 23 matches and is beginning her freshman season at Florida State University, along with sophomore Natalia Kuikka of Merilappi United. During the 2016 regular season, current Finnish international forward Sanni Franssi (21) of PK-35 Vantaa won the scoring title with 20 goals. Kaisa Collin of HJK (19) was second on 16 goals with Ria Oling (21) of TPS third on 13 points, who also has one goal in 4 Euro qualification matches. Three domestic players leading the league in scoring, all of whom are 21 or under, bodes well for the future of the game in Finland.
Aland United (27 points) has struggled this season and is mid-table along with HJK Helsinki (29 points), but both sides made the championship playoff round. Aland United is loaded with imports—a traditional for the club--including Scottish goalkeeper Khym Ramsey, who played at Rangers and was on the books of IBV in Iceland. She has been with Aland for 2 years. Other imports include Estonian defender Pille Raadik and two Americans with NWSL experience: Holly Hein, who played with Houston and Seattle in 2014 and is in her second year with Aland, and Katie Kelly, who played for the NWSL's FC Kansas City in 2013 and in Sweden and Germany, and is in her third year in Finland. In midfield, Japan's Ayaki Shinada Japan played with Kungsbacka in the Swedish second division last year after playing for Lindsey Wilson College and trying out with the Portland Thorns in 2015 while Raquel Infante of Portugal played professionally in Italy's Serie A with Zaccaria and Riviera di Raomagna. Cameroon's Raissa Freudjio (20), who has been in Sweden for 2 years and played in Turkey's top division with Trabzon Idmanocagi, has 5 goals in 17 games. American forward Briana Campos (22 years old), who played at Baylor University at Texas and participated in Mexican National Team camps, has 4 goals in 15 games. Evergreen Cynthia Uwak of Nigeria also has 4 goals in 13 games and has played 7 years in Finland and 2 with Saarbrucken in German (2009/10 and 2010/11). Completing the international contingent at Aland was Italian head coach Giovanni Costantino, who just took an assistant position with Honved of Hungary men's side.
Former Aland coach Gary Williams explained the philosophy of the club in terms of attracting international players to the remote islands between Finland and Sweden. He told Womenfootballdaily in 2014 that Aland United relied on foreign players in order to support their local players with a professional environment and: “In order for this to happen, we must bring in the best players we can. There are only 250 girls or women playing football on the Åland Islands so you can imagine this is a very small population. However, the policy is not specific to the countries that have represented Åland United in the past 4 years. We search for local players first, supported by players from Finland and Sweden (since the native language is Swedish) and then broaden our search to other European Countries and continents as required. [Forward] Adelina Engman is a great example of this. She has risen to be a regular Finnish national team player during her 6-7 year development at Åland United. If Åland United did not exist and did not compete at the top of the Finnish league, it's likely she would have needed to leave the islands for another team in Finland before graduating high school." [Engman now plays in Sweden with Kopparbergs/Goteborg FC.] When asked if Aland United could conceivably rely on only players from Finland, Williams replied: “We do search in Finland as part of our recruiting policy and welcome players to Åland. However, they must be at the right level to support our mission. There are many players every year we speak to from Finland. Some join, others aren't in a position where they can or want to leave home for what many might see as a foreign land, due to the fact that they may not speak Swedish very well."
Leaders PK-35 Vantaa has an entirely home based side except for 22-year-old American Ashley Riefner, a recent acquisition who played at the University of Richmond. Riefner, who had 2 goals in 10 matches, explained: “This has been my dream since I started playing at age 5 to play professionally—how great is it that my job is to be a soccer player?" Spider head coach Peter Albright said: “Having a player in Europe, being successful and competing, gives us an avenue to do more recruiting, particularly in Scandinavia." Riefner had talked to Richmond Associate Head Coach and Finland native Mika Elovaara about playing in Finland and he steered her to PK as: “The best team and best fit." Elovaara joined the Richmond Spiders ahead of the 2014 season and coached and played at UNC Wilmington, where he won three national championships as a player. Elovaara also played over 150 professional games in Finland after graduation. He said that at PK-35, Riefner would be: “surrounded by high level players, national team players and youth national teamers."
Riefner would also be the first former Richmond player to participate in the UEFA Champions League during the First Qualifying Round last week; though she played 90 minutes, her side lost at home in her first content--the initial Group 8 Qualifying match--to Futebol Benfica of Portugal 2-1 on August 23. They defeated Newry City Ladies of Northern Ireland 2-0 in their second match on August 25 with Riefner again playing the full match. In the group decider on Sunday August 28, Riefner again played the entire game against Norwegian power Avaldsnes IL but goals by former Norwegian international forward Elise Thorsnes and Icelandic international Holmfridur Magnusdottir (who played with the Philadelphia Independence in WPS and in Denmark with Fortuna) gave the Norwegians a 2-0 win and a spot in the round of 32. PK-35 finished joint second with Benfica but had the advantage on goal difference (+1 to -4). This is the first time in five UEFA campaigns that the Finns did not advance to the round of 32, where they have lost to top sides such as Lyon in 2012-13 (0-12 on aggregate), Birmingham City in 2013-14 (0-4 on aggregate) and FC Rosengard of Sweden last season (0-9 on aggregate). PK-35 hopes to maintain their title in the championship round and compete again in the UEFA qualifiers next season.
A few club sides are comprised entirely of Finnish players including: joint second TPS Turku and Honka, fifth place HJK, seventh place Ilves Tampere, while fourth place Pallokissat Kuopio has only one import: Signy Aarna of Estonia, who had 9 goals in 18 games.
Joint bottom side TIPS also has only one import: 22 year old Canadian forward Nicole Waters, who has 1 goal in 4 games. Waters, a native of Ontario, played collegiately at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
In eighth place, ONS Oulu has a Chinese goalkeeper in 29-year-old Zhang Yanru, who played for Sunnana in the Elitenan or Second Division in Sweden in 2012. Other imports are Nigerian defender Juliana Bawa.
Nice Futis, tied for 9th place, has American defender Megan Fisher (ex-Drake University in Iowa) who played at Durham University in England while earning her Masters degree in business, before turning pro in 2015. They also have American midfielder Brooke Barbuto (ex-Stoney Brook University in New York State) who has played in Finland for a few years along with three young Russians who are playing abroad for the first time:
Elaterina Tyrushkina from FK Kubanochka Krasnodar (20), Marina Fedorova (19) and Arina Kolesnikova (18), both of whom played for Zorkiy Krasnogorsk last season.
Finland's campaign at the Euros Finals next summer—should they qualify as expected—hopefully will be a launching pad to a successful quest to make the 2019 World Cup in France, as well as further immigration of their top players to Sweden and other leagues abroad.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribalfootball. His latest book is Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey
