Finland-Portugal

[Paul_D]

Ok, so what would you predict for Finland-Portugal tomorrow? Important game, at 20:00 finnish time... If Finland manages to get a draw, they could become the favorites for getting in the 2nd position of the group A, which means qualification, at the expenses of Belgium, Serbia and Poland.

But I'd say an easy 2-0 for Portugal...

An other important game tomorrow is the possible revenge of the final of the last world cup: France-Italy (22:00 finnish time, not really available through the official TV-channels). The french stadium of Paris will be boiling.

/Paul

[ajdias]

I don't think Finland could become favorites even if they win over Portugal tonight. There's a lot of matches involved and the team is highly inconstant. I can see them easily loosing points in Armenia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

As for tonight's game I would not mind seeing Finland win if I didn't know any better. It's already impossible to read or hear finns talking about Portugal's national team without a remark to 2002's victory in Porto (1-4, a friendly). Don't even want to think what will happen if they do win

[Quin]

1-1

And no i am not a bitter dutch guy..

[sinikala]

The Finns held their own and the goal was very well worked. They didn't look out of place at all.

Probably down to the influence of Hodgson.

[simon]

The Finns held their own and the goal was very well worked. They didn't look out of place at all.

Probably down to the influence of Hodgson.

I was very happy to hear that Hodgson was going to manage the Finns. He is a very good manager. After all on paper the team is not so bad, just need some self belief.

NOw how about 0-13.....

[Paul_D]

Well, Finland played with 11 players against 10 during 40 minutes, and still the Portuguese were maybe closer to score than the Finnish during this time

Great pressing by the Finns during the whole game, nice offensive spirit. It payed off because the Portuguese were so clumsy in their passes and possession of the ball, especially during the first half. The referee did not look like appreciating the Portuguese very much This too helped the Finns a bit.

0-13 by Germany against St Marin is impressive, but the biggest and most celebrated victory of last night was for sure the win 3-1 by France against Italy, in Paris !!! Italy is in trouble in the group B now, and it would remind the Italians that when they won the World Championship in 1982, they lost too many games in the following months and did not qualify for the European Championship in 1984.

/Paul

[Rosamunda]

Yes, the French game was FUN. The game didn't start until 10 pm so I didn't tell my kids (school the next day) but when they heard the first goal - Henry - TWO MINUTES into the game..... Argh! It was really difficult getting them back to bed!!! I thought the whole thing was quite civil, considering the circumstances, not too much booing and hissing during the Italian national anthem. Big Party atmosphere.

[tgabawm]

[/quote]The referee did not look like appreciating the Portuguese very much This too helped the Finns a bit.

Are you kidding? I was in the game, and the referee let the Portugese get so many free kicks they shouldn't have and stop the game by falling every five minutes! Great game! The Finns could have scored another toward the end, but good result anyway. And a great atmosphere!

[otyikondo]

Not sure which game PaulD was watching, but it certainly wasn't the one I attended, or tgabawm's one. The ref fell for it bigtime.

And I'd also like to see a count of the number of SAVES Jussi Jääskeläinen had to make in the last 40 minutes. The Portuguese pass very daintily, and they MIGHT have been able to slice apart the Finnish defence, but with a gaping hole at the back and with the departure of Gomes (not Gomez), which left Scissorlegs on his own, they had bigger things to worry about in the last half-hour or so than scoring.

They probably should have wrapped it up straight after half-time, and in an earlier incarnation of Finland, they would have. Hanski Tiihinen would have put through his own net off his backside or something. The fact that that didn't happen is progress.

Edited to correct a spelling malfunction.

[sinikettu]

We trying to have a pub quiz in the same bar as big screen showing the match...Lets just say...it was not a good idea---except-----
Into the Bar walked the long absent from this forum.....Ace.....he was so busy meeting/sharing a beer with old friends that he lost interest in football...especialy after he happend to mention that he will become a father next month... The Hook Norton real beer was sooon sold out...
Not sure how he got home to Vousaari...

[simon]

From the highlights I saw on the news this morning it seems that Hyppia should of had a hat trick the amount of headers he missed.

[sinikettu]

From the highlights I saw on the news this morning it seems that Hyppia should of had a hat trick the amount of headers he missed.

That is bit OTT at least two of his headers were saved by some world class goalkeeping....he was on target..hardly clasifies as a miss
Hesa seems to agree with me..
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Europe ... 5221465207

Sami Hyypiä twice went close with headers inside the first ten minutes, from a flighted Jari Litmanen free-kick and a corner.
Both times the Liverpool centre-back seemed to make acres of space to work with. On the second occasion he was only denied by an acrobatic save from Ricardo in the Portuguese goal.

[Paul_D]

Luck, good or bad, does not happen only when there is a well aimed shot.

Yep, Ricardo saved 2 shots on target of Sami Hyypiä, but beware that shooting on target is not the exact synonym of being close to score a goal. A fantastic action can end up with a wrong last move (i.e. wrong control or shoot of the ball, no shot on the goal, or a lucky clearance by a defender), and that's also something to consider as "being close to score". Portuguese had a lot of those.

The quick way that Portuguese were starting their attacks, either through Deco in the axis or through a wide pass on the right side, and the great way that they were moving forward to the box all together in a second, made me think several times "oh no, that's so well done and they are so good, poor Finland gonna suffer a goal". Yet, those nice combinations and very quick and powerfull offensive did not result enough often on shots on target, and I think that bad luck for Portuguese players (and good luck of Finnish players) has been involved a lot in those fruitless results. The talent of the offensive Portuguese players looked stronger than the fact that the Finnish team was playing defensively (looking for counter attacks), but luck was for the Finns in their own half.

Yet, I have looked for the statistics of this game (how many shots wide or on target, how many corner-kicks, free-kicks, time spent in each half, etc.) I could not find them... Any idea where to find them?

Finnish players were quite rushing to have the ball, so much that they left Portuguese players several times lying on the field... and the referee was looking at the injured ones like "Don't try to fool me, I know that Portuguese are divers. Stand up! you have nothing" The Finnish players were not mean at all, but really going to physical contacts. Well, at least Väyrynen was pretty mean a few times, I remember how he pushed down Ronaldo who was already falling after that his leg has been tripped by Väyrynen, it looked like judo. The portuguese coach got a bit upset of all this, he moved toward the field or shouted critics, and then the referee ran at the portuguese coach with such a speed and an angry and determined face, I tought he was going to head-butt the coach and pay a tribute to Zidane Those 2 ones won't spend their holidays together.

/Paul

[otyikondo]

From the highlights I saw on the news this morning it seems that Hyppia should of had a hat trick the amount of headers he missed.

That is bit OTT at least two of his headers were saved by some world class goalkeeping....he was on target..hardly clasifies as a miss
Hesa seems to agree with me..
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Europe ... 5221465207

Sami Hyypiä twice went close with headers inside the first ten minutes, from a flighted Jari Litmanen free-kick and a corner.
Both times the Liverpool centre-back seemed to make acres of space to work with. On the second occasion he was only denied by an acrobatic save from Ricardo in the Portuguese goal.

Paul's got a bit of a point. The first header hit the post holding up the goal netting - in other words he put it about 70 centimetres wide. When the net shook we thought for a moment he'd scored. The second almost immediately after did produce a fine reflex save, and then he had a third glancing header down the other end and put that one very wide. I don't remember any others, but there may have ben one or two. In the first two cases I had a perfect view and he was either GIVEN space or made it for himself and basically had a free whack at it. Still, at least they pushed him up for set-pieces this time, which is more than against Poland.

[otyikondo]

Luck, good or bad, does not happen only when there is a well aimed shot.

Yep, Ricardo saved 2 shots on target of Sami Hyypiä, but beware that shooting on target is not the exact synonym of being close to score a goal. A fantastic action can end up with a wrong last move (i.e. wrong control or shoot of the ball, no shot on the goal, or a lucky clearance by a defender), and that's also something to consider as "being close to score". Portuguese had a lot of those.

The quick way that Portuguese were starting their attacks, either through Deco in the axis or through a wide pass on the right side, and the great way that they were moving forward to the box all together in a second, made me think several times "oh no, that's so well done and they are so good, poor Finland gonna suffer a goal". Yet, those nice combinations and very quick and powerfull offensive did not result enough often on shots on target, and I think that bad luck for Portuguese players (and good luck of Finnish players) has been involved a lot in those fruitless results. The talent of the offensive Portuguese players looked stronger than the fact that the Finnish team was playing defensively (looking for counter attacks), but luck was for the Finns in their own half.

Yet, I have looked for the statistics of this game (how many shots wide or on target, how many corner-kicks, free-kicks, time spent in each half, etc.) I could not find them... Any idea where to find them?

Finnish players were quite rushing to have the ball, so much that they left Portuguese players several times lying on the field... and the referee was looking at the injured ones like "Don't try to fool me, I know that Portuguese are divers. Stand up! you have nothing" The Finnish players were not mean at all, but really going to physical contacts. Well, at least Väyrynen was pretty mean a few times, I remember how he pushed down Ronaldo who was already falling after that his leg has been tripped by Väyrynen, it looked like judo. The portuguese coach got a bit upset of all this, he moved toward the field or shouted critics, and then the referee ran at the portuguese coach with such a speed and an angry and determined face, I tought he was going to head-butt the coach and pay a tribute to Zidane Those 2 ones won't spend their holidays together.

/Paul

Yes, to the deft passing in midfield of the Portuguese, except... have you ever seen Colombia (or equivalent) play? They can thread a ball through a needle in midfield and probably paint a picture of the Mona Lisa in passes along the deck, but they are jigsaw-players - they go to pieces in the box. To some extent I shared your view and your nervousness, but they do flatter to deceive somewhat, and clearly the Finns were quite content to let them play "pretty and pointless", particularly in the first 20 minutes. They back-pedalled to around 20 yards out and then cleaned house.

In a sense it was all smoke and mirrors - it really was only in the last five or ten minutes before they scored and the first few minutes of the second half that they created real clear-cut CHANCES or caused the Finnish defence to look panicky. And that isn't a particularly good sign. Except for Finland, since it suggests that even if they were not the equal of the Portuguese in ball skills, they did cover all the gaps through shrewd placement. I don't know if you witnessed the Holland-Finland game in the World Cup qualifiers (where Finland went ahead and then lost 3-1). On that occasion the Dutch not only had the moves in midfield, they were able to turn them into a string of serious chances, aided and abetted by the total failure of the Finns to hold the ball up in midfield when they DID regain possession, and ultimately - after five or six near-misses and some big saves from Antti Niemi - the dam broke. It was like watching one of those nature documentaries in slow motion where you just KNOW the ugly beastie is going to kill the rabbit, and it does. I never had that sensation on Wednesday night, or at least not for long enough to register any real sense of alarm.

You call it luck. I'm not so sure.