Here we again for the second installment of 'Around the Leagues', and today we are back in the frozen wastelands of Europe with a look at the Finnish League.
I'm a little short of Hivies to help me out here, the only people that I know of who live in Finland are that unfeasibly good-looking Malfoy lookalike, Fred something. 
Obviously, I have got all this information from various sources on the internet which I will list at the end of the post! Also, apologies to all Finns for the anglicising of some words and my ignorance at being able to change to the correct keyboard layout!
On the plus side, it's fewer Finnish football fans to offend so it's not all bad news and at the end of this article, from my research, I will choose a Finnish league team to follow, AND there is shortly to be a very good reason why the Finns have a huge milestone in their football heritage coming up, but more of that later!
So. Finland. When it comes to world sport, football obviously isn't their thing but they do have a huge grassroots and amateur level of participation with a massive number of clubs and teams. The Finns excel in the world of Alpine sports but of more interest to me being a huge rally fan, they are, without doubt, the greatest drivers in the world, but that's a post for another day and now I've buttered them up a little, I can go and take the piss out of their football, guilt-free!
A Little on the Background of Finnish Football
Like the Norwegians who I wrote about the other day, I was quite surprised to find they have a really long history of clubs, they joined FIFA right back in 1908 after setting up a national football association the previous year and although not having a league system, have had a national knock-out cup competition amongst their clubs since 1909.
Football had been brought to Finland by English sailors towards the end of the 19th century when Finland was still an autonomously ruled part of the Russian Empire (it's a proper education on my blog!) and the first recorded club was Helsingin Ponnistus who were formed in 1887, and like many clubs, started as a general sporting club but who are still currently in existence, albeit in Division 3, the fourth tier of football which according to Wikipedia, comprises 104 teams! No idea how that works and thank goodness I'm concentrating on their top league but I'll come back to it later.
Now after Independence in 1917 and then a civil war between the whites and the reds (posh folk and working-class) in 1918, it would be a further 12 years before an organized league structure would be introduced at the top of which was the Mestaruussarja and this is how it remained until the Veikkausliiga came into being in 1990.
A quick look below...
So below the top tier are 7 further divisions or leagues, all of which are broken down further by region. We mentioned Helsingin Ponnistus who play in Division 3, the fourth tier which is called 'Kolmonen', and this, as an example is broken down into 9 groups of 10 to 12 teams based on their location who play each other home and away, the winners of each group get promoted and the two losers get demoted.
Within all 8 tiers, there are almost 1000 clubs! That's a lot of football players for a country with a population of just 5.5 million. Maybe even I could still get a game!
Finally, we get to Veikkausliiga
Veikkausliiga began in 1990 and is named after a government-owned betting company, Veikkaus (same as Norway!). It consists of 12 professional clubs and the season runs from April to November to avoid the cold winters, long dark days and frozen pitches.
Now it's a little different to most leagues as each team plays each twice, home and away before the league splits into two groups. The Championship group and the challenge group where they play each other within the group, once. The team that finishes bottom is relegated to Ykkönen and the team that's second-bottom plays a two-leg play-off with the team that finished second-top in Ykkönen.
Having read this, I still don't get the two-group system and how that works which is a shame I don't know anyone to fill in the blanks for me. If anyone else knows, please drop me a comment!
Again, drawing parallels with Norway and something that seems to be consistent with smaller countries and leagues, one team has dominated the league and that team is Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi, more commonly known as HJK who are based in Helsinki and who have won the title 14 times since the league began in 1990.
And my Team Will Be?
The recently promoted Kotkan Työväen Palloilijat, KTP who were established in 1927 and are a member of the Finnish Workers' Sports Federation (the Reds, remember the civil war?).
They are based in Kotka, an industrial port city on the coast, and have been on a poor run in the last few years but are back in the top division once more. I like teams that fight back and represent football's working-class roots.
They are also a very well-supported club and hold the record for most season tickets sold in the first division. They play their games at the Arto Tolsa Areena which has a capacity of just 4480!
source www.soccerwiki.org
Famous Finnish Players?
The really famous ones who spring to mind are Sami Hyypia who was a Liverpool defender and along with John Arne Riise formed the defensive duo of my annual dream team for a number of years! Then we have Jari Litmanen who is the current Finnish manager and can boast Ajax, Liverpool and Barcelona amongst his former clubs and then we get on to a couple of our own former Leeds players.
Mikael Forssell wore the white shirt during the 2011-12 season, however, he wore it mainly on the subs bench and didn't manage to score a goal. He was a bit shit really and so we didn't renew his contract and he went back to HJK. HE was here at the same time as his countryman, Mika Väyrynen who we bought from the Dutch side Heerenveen. He also spent most of his season injured or on the bench and was also a bit shit and had his contract cancelled by mutual consent after 8 months.
Then more recently Appo Halme who has just had a call-up to the Finland squad. HE signed for us from HJK but due to serious injury missed most of his first season before coming back and playing a couple of games. I thought he was half decent and has well as regularly appearing on the first team bench, was still playing for the U23's.
Aapo Halme when he still had a dream! source
He was sold to Barnsley July 2019 where he is having a very successful career!
Currently, though, I guess the most famous Finnish player and one who I genuinely admire for his goal-scoring is Norwich forward Teemu Pukki. A top-quality player and will be a star at this month's Euro 2020 tournament because that's right, Finland have finally got to the finals of a major tournament for the first time in their history.
A Tough Group
With all the will in the world, I can't see them progressing through the group stages as they have been drawn in Group B along with Belgium, Russia and Denmark against whom they will open their campaign on June 12th. Finland can be proud of just getting there and as I said at the beginning, a huge milestone in their ever-developing football which becomes ever more popular in this Nordic nation!
