

Finland Euro 2020
By Michael Bailey Jun 9, 2021 14
To appreciate Finland’s journey to their first ever major finals, you only need absorb one moment in Finnish football history. A true comic tragedy.

“Time stood still,” former Derby County midfielder Simo Valakari tells The Athletic, with a more jovial tone than he might have managed before Euro 2020’s qualification campaign had ended happily for his homeland.

It was a sodden, freezing Helsinki night in October 1997. Finland were 1-0 up against Hungary in their final World Cup qualifier as stoppage time ticked by.

Victory would take Finland’s golden generation, including Jari Litmanen, Sami Hyypia and Mixu Paatelainen, to within a play-off tie of the 1998 World Cup in France. The excitement was palpable.

All they had to do was defend a Hungary corner.

Four of the final five touches were by Finnish players.

“I was the first-post man and when I saw the corner went over me I thought, ‘No worries, our big player will head it away’,” recalls Valakari. “He lost the header but the ball went to our player. No problem; he will clear it now. But he hit it back off another of our players. Still, I thought, ‘We can clear it’.

“Then our player on the line hit it against our goalkeeper, and it went into the net. The whole stadium went so silent. It was unbelievable.”

The own goal credited to a static Teuvo Moilanen, the former Preston North End goalkeeper, was a disaster.

Tero Vaatainen was one of the 32,000 people inside the Olympic Stadium that night; then a 15-year-old who had travelled to the capital with his youth team to watch.

“I’ve never heard such a big event with so many people to be totally silent,” says Vaatainen.