The represents
Finland in international
Football competitions and is controlled by the
Football Association Of Finland .
The Finnish national team has never qualified for a finals tournament of the
World Cup or the
European Championships , but has made four
Olympic Tournament appearances. It was considered one of the weakest teams in
Europe in past decades; especially at a time when many of today's smallest nations didn't yet compete in international football. Finland is one of the few European countries where football is not the most popular spectator sport, and the game has traditionally been played on an amateur basis in the country. Only in the last decade – after the
Bosman Ruling and the removal of foreign quotas in the
EU region – have Finnish players had significant opportunities to play in the continent's top leagues. Today, nearly all regular members of the national team play outside of Finland.
Finland currently ranks somewhere around the middle class in the
UEFA region. It regularly beats the lowest-ranked teams, and can occasionally perform well against the stronger teams. It has not, however, yet found enough consistency against the top nations to truly push for qualification.
Finland are currently competing in
Group A in
Qualification for
UEFA Euro 2008 , together with
Portugal ,
Poland ,
Serbia ,
Belgium ,
Armenia ,
Azerbaijan and
Kazakhstan . The team started the campaign very well, beating Poland 3-1 away and earning a 1-1 draw with Portugal at home. The Finns then gained four points from their difficult away ties against Armenia and Kazakhstan, drawing 0-0 with the former and beating the latter 2-0. On 15th of November, 2006 Finland beat Armenia 1-0 at home, thus remaining undefeated in the qualifying. In Finland's first match of 2007, they were in poor form when they lost against Azerbaijan 1-0, one of the worst matches in Finnish footballing history. On early June they lost to Serbia 2-0 at home, which many fans felt being the end of a real battle for qualification. But the next match was against Belgium and team Finland gained the trust of their fans back by winning 2-0 at home. Belgium match had its own amusements when an eagle-owl (which is named as Bubi referring to eagle owl's binomal name Bubo bubo, as well as famous football commentator
Bror-Erik Wallenius ) landed to arena and then flew few rounds above the audience, stopping the game for 6 minutes. Afterwards, the eagle owl has been considered a "mascot" for Finnish national team.
The Football Association of Finland was founded as early as 1907 and became a member of
FIFA in 1908, despite the fact that at that time Finland was still an
Autonomous Grand Duchy of the
Russian Empire and didn't gain independence until 1917. Finland played its first international match on
October 22 ,
1911 , losing to neighbours
Sweden 2-5 in
Helsinki .
A fourth place finish at the
1912 Summer Olympics in
Stockholm still arguably ranks as the country's best ever achievement in international football. Finland beat
Italy and
Russia in the first two rounds before losing to
Great Britain in the semi-finals. In the bronze medal match they were beaten 0-9 by the
Netherlands . According to the story, the Finns were under the impression that the match would be a day later, so they had gone out celebrating the night before the match, and as a consequence were easily beaten. Finland's star player
Eino Soinio , aged only 17 at the time, was chosen to the all-star team of the tournament by
Swedish paper ''
Idrottsbladet ''.
Finland also took part in the , but had to wait for its first win until 1978. The
1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki saw the hosts crash to
Austria in the first round. Finland did, however, win the unofficial
Nordic championship in 1952, 1964 and 1966.
The results of the team improved somewhat in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Finland missed out on qualification for
Euro 1980 by just a point and for the
1986 World Cup by two points. Finland was invited to take part in the
1980 Summer Olympics in
Moscow after many
Western countries announced they would boycott the games, but failed to progress from its group.
By the mid-1990s Finland started to have more players in high profile European leagues, led by the
Ajax superstar
Jari Litmanen . In 1996
Danish Euro 1992 winning coach
Richard Møller Nielsen was hired to take Finland to the
1998 World Cup . The team enjoyed mixed fortunes in the campaign, highpoints of which were a draw and a win away to
Norway and
Switzerland respectively. Going into the last match, Finland would have needed a win at home to
Hungary to earn a place in the play-offs. They led the game 1-0 going into injury time, but scored an own goal, and once again the dreams of qualification were over. Møller Nielsen also tried to lead Finland to
Euro 2000 . In this campaign the Finns recorded a sensational win away to
Turkey , but couldn't compete with
Germany and Turkey in the long run.
Antti Muurinen succeeded Møller Nielsen as coach in 2000. He had arguably the most talented group of Finnish players ever at his disposal, including players such as
Antti Niemi ,
Sami Hyypiä ,
Teemu Tainio and
Mikael Forssell in addition to the legendary Litmanen. The team also performed quite well under him in
Qualification for the
2002 World Cup despite a difficult draw, earning two draws against Germany and a home draw with
England as well as beating
Greece 5-1 in Helsinki. In the end, however, England and Germany proved too strong, and the Finns finished third in
The Group . Hopes were high going into
Qualification for
Euro 2004 after the promising last campaign and friendly wins over the likes of Norway, Belgium and Portugal. However, Finland started the campaign by losing to
Wales and Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro, now Serbia). These losses were followed by two defeats by Italy, and a 3-0 home win over Serbia and Montenegro was little consolation, as the Finns finished fourth in
The Group . In
Qualification for the
2006 World Cup Finland failed to score a single point in six matches against the top three teams in
Their Group , the Netherlands, the
Czech Republic and
Romania . Muurinen was sacked in June 2005, and he was replaced by caretaker
Jyrki Heliskoski , but results didn't improve.
In August 2005 it was announced that
Roy Hodgson would become the new Finland coach in 2006, and he started in the job in January of that year. The
Englishman becomes the second high profile foreign coach in recent history of the country, as he tries to lead the team to its first ever major championship qualification.
Most of Finland's important home matches are played at the
Helsinki Olympic Stadium in the capital Helsinki. It has been Finland's principal home stadium ever since its construction was completed in 1938. Before that
Pallokenttä in Helsinki was mainly used.
Today, some qualifying matches against lower profile opponents and some friendlies are hosted at the
Ratina Stadion in
Tampere . Helsinki's
Finnair Stadium , which has
Artificial Turf , is also used for some friendlies.
- 1930 to 1934 - ''Did not enter''
- 1938 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1950 - ''Withdrew during qualifying''
- 1954 to 2006 - ''Did not qualify''
- 2010 - ' ' Qualifying underway ' '
Updated 2007-08-23.
The following players have all recently been called up to the Finland squad for the Euro 2008 qualifying.
- ''Correct as of August 23 , 2007 ''
- ''Players who are still active and available for selection are in bold.''
