[lionheart]

The match will be played tomorrow (Wednesday 22.5.2002) at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. From the looks of it Jari Litmanen will be in the squad but striker Mikael Forssell is out of the squad with an injury. He will be replaced by Paulus Roiha of FC Utrecht.

I have tickets to the match !

 

[Jonatan]

Will it be on telly?

I hate to be pesimistic, but I think we'll only get 0-0 or possibly a 0-1 loss as we don't have anyone who can replace Forssell...

Roiha is not good enough (yet)
Johansson is pish
Kuqi can possibly score a goal

 

[Figo Rules]

Good Luck in the match, you'll need it.

I think Finland used up a lot of luck winning in Portugal 4-1. No other team will give you that many open chances.

Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne may be 2 of my favourite hockey players but after beating us 4-1, my feelings were hurt



I hope you qualify for Euro 2004. It will be tough battling with Italy, Yugoslavia and Wales. Good Luck

 

[lionheart]

Will it be on telly?

I hate to be pesimistic, but I think we'll only get 0-0 or possibly a 0-1 loss as we don't have anyone who can replace Forssell...

Roiha is not good enough (yet)
Johansson is pish
Kuqi can possibly score a goal

Jonatan if I'd be you I'd come to the match. I predict that Finland will win 2-0. We don't need Forssell to beat Latvia.

 

[Jonatan]

But we can't beat the easy teams

And they have some quality players like Pahars and Stepanovs

 

[Kee]

Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne may be 2 of my favourite hockey players...

Pffft :rollani:
Finland! Stop playing Icehockey
The Nordic forum is Crawling with Canadians and American Icehockey-fanatics!! :tongue: :rollani:






......Just think of the swedish forum :howler:

BTW good luck tomorrow!

 

[lionheart]

But we can't beat the easy teams

And they have some quality players like Pahars and Stepanovs

Pahars is good but Stepanovs unfortunately rarely gets a game for Arsenal.

If Finland takes the match seriously we can win 6-0 but I think they'll play slack and win 1-0.

 

[Tommi]

Jonatan..TV2 will broadcast that match starting in 20.00 (Finland time), but it isnt live! The match will start at 19.00 (Finland time)
Too bad...why they do this to us? No live!:doh:...i am protesting and i will not watch that game at all. Instead i am going to play some soccer with my team...and i will score at least three goals.:hopefull:

Ciao,
Tommi

 

[lionheart]

I just came back from the match & Finland won 2-1 ! I was actually disappointed with the match once again Finland didn't take their opponent that seriously although we controlled the game. In my opinion the best players of the match were Tommi Grönlund, Shefki Kuqi & Aki Riihilahti.

 

[lionheart]

Finland - Latvia 2 - 1

Finnish scorers :
Aki Riihilahti , Shefki Kuqi

Latvian scorers :
Marian Pahars

 

[Finn]

Yeah, we played badly but good that we can win with a bad performance nowadays. This game once again showed that we aren't that good when we have the possession and the opponent is playing very defensively. We weren't able to create enough chances. This game also showed how important players Tainio and Forssell are for us. Grönlund (who IMO sucked) and Riihilahti weren't able to pass the ball forward and Litmanen was the only player in our midfield with some playmaking skills. And Johansson really can't play as a striker in our current tactic because he can't hold up the ball. I would have liked to see Väyrynen play instead of Grönlund. None of our players really shined, but Niemi made two (?) good saves in the first half and at least Saarinen and Kopteff were OK. Nurmela also had a couple of dangerous crosses and Kuqi fought very hard like he always does. Litmanen wasn't that bad if compared to other players but we've used to see a lot better from him so he was a disappointment.

 

[lionheart]

In my opinion Mika Nurmela played very badly. Grönlund wasn't spectacular but he fought hard & that's what counts. Otherwise Grönlund's crosses were inaccurate and he didn't play the ball across the pitch. Joonas Kolkka was quite impressive & Sami Hyypiä was once again one of the best players on the pitch. Aki Riihilahti was once again an example to the whole team. His fighting spirit was something that wasn't hard to notice. Kopteff played very well & he had some fantastic crosses. One of these lead to Finland's first goal. Johansson received the chance to "shine" but didn't impress me at least. I think the two strikers for Finland from now on should be Forssell & Kuqi.