Three Veikkausliiga championships and two places in the group stage in Eurocourts. Toni Koskelan The coaching period at HJK that ended in July is one of the most successful of all time in Finnish football.
Now Koskela has a different summer behind it. HJK issued departure passes in July, so he has spent a rare summer vacation for a Finnish football coach.
Koskela, 40, has not spoken publicly about his career since his firing. Summer has turned into autumn, and thinking about the future gets new rounds.
The next destination is abroad.
– I definitely want to be able to challenge myself in a better series and in a bigger series. I have been in the Veikkausliiga for ten years, first I did commendably in RoPS with the smallest budgets in the series and now in Klubi. In Finnish club football, I don’t really have any new challenges or new things to overcome right now, Koskela tells Urheilu.
Getting a foreign head coach is not easy. Koskela himself admits that a Finnish football coach abroad is not exactly an export product.
– I live for the challenge and the opportunity to develop myself and to develop the operating environment in which I am. I want to challenge myself in a bigger league and in futsima. Unelmapesti would be a major league team with a clear vision and the desire to put it into practice.
Getting fired doesn’t always make it easier to get a new, bigger trainer. But on the other hand, Koskela has already held negotiations in the direction of Sweden when he was at HJK, at least Malmö and IFK Gothenburg with.
– There are several clubs in Scandinavia that are big in principle, but have had challenges for a long time.
Koskela does not mention the clubs by name, but for example, at least IFK Göteborg is exactly what the description fits. In recent years, the former big club has fallen far from the top places in Allsvenskan and is still fighting against relegation.
“I think that the discussions will take place face to face”
In terms of sports, Koskela’s success as a coach has been undeniable. Over the past few years, it is good to build up the pursuit of a foreigner.
At the same time that HJK was fighting in the Europa League last fall against garbage like AS Roma and Real Betis, questions arose behind the scenes around Koskela.
Helsingin Sanomat reports After the end of the Veikkausliiga season, how Koskela’s management methods had caused anger in HJK’s dressing room. HS also wrote that Koskela had to be interviewed and, according to the newspaper’s sources, received a warning due to “improper coaching methods”.
At no point has anyone publicly confirmed the information that came to HS from the inner circle of the team – and Koskela, when asked, does not take a stand on the claims even now.
– I have no more to comment on that than I did then. I think that the discussions will take place face to face. If there is a problem, it will be solved.
He states that a season without various adversities is almost impossible.
– When we think about the 2020 season, I think we got individual bad results, while KuPS didn’t seem to lose a single point. The following season, we led the league by ten points at one point, we lost three games in a row and the lead melted away, he describes.
The previously mentioned championship season 2022 was still its own chapter.
– The results were more fluctuating then in the spring. Then came that one Monday in June, when on one trip to a cup game it came one criminal conviction revealed and in the evening’s game, two players lost their cruciate ligament. We lost three key players in one day. At the same time, we had small problems with the group dynamics of the team, Koskela repeats and sighs.
Will you get used to criticism as HJK’s head coach?
There has been enough criticism of Koskela from both the media and HJK supporters. Many in-game choices have already influenced the feedback.
– In this job, however, you can never please everyone. It’s an impossible equation that just has to be accepted. When you can justify your own decisions through your own values and principles, it is easier to live with them.
The position of HJK’s head coach is different in Finnish football. The head coach of Finland’s most successful club will be the focus of criticism if HJK does not progress from victory to victory. Especially when the game coughs on domestic fields, where the club has almost superior resources compared to its competitors.
Feedback is audible, in public discussion and after lost matches in the stands. Are you getting used to constant criticism and shouts of “Get out”?
– I think that it is definitely part of the job. However, it is in a way deserved when you are in that role and the expectations are high, including for yourself, Koskela begins.
– Of course, it’s sometimes frustrating. Everyone has an opinion because this is an emotional business. People often speak more from their imaginations. You should “play like this or play like that”, or “why does this play, why doesn’t that play.”
– However, in that role, the head coach has the best information that some things just cannot be implemented. However, each coach makes his choices and decisions based on what he believes is the best option for the team.
Koskela states that the role of the Club’s head coach is certainly not suitable for all types of people.
– I also feel that I want to go in the direction of the football world in my career, where the criticism is even harsher.
Two things happened in the summer
Koskela’s intention was to end the time with HJK at the end of the year, when the contract expired. The trip was canceled in 2023 in July. What does he think, would the course have turned?
– I didn’t have any trauma from being fired. They sometimes hit several professional coaches, says Koskela.
– Without a doubt, I believe that we would have turned the results around. We had strong evidence of that from previous years. I also have to remember that I was at HJK for more than ten years. I know the club and the people inside and out.
Koskela emphasizes that he remembered HJK’s exceptional success at the team level from his years as head coach, as well as the advancement of many players in their careers and promotion to the national team. Two things come to mind that he and his coaching staff should have done better in retrospect.
– One thing was clearly that we should have prepared the team better for those moments when everything doesn’t go well. Although we talked about it, probably not concretely enough. We had many young and youthful players who were in HJK for the first time, where the external pressure is really different than elsewhere. In HJK, the crisis is one defeat away, he begins.
– The second point was playful. We had one thing that we set out to improve and invest in this year. We wanted to be more efficient and of better quality in attack when we have a big space for it. We also knew that as the season went on opponents would start to focus on defending low and taking away our strengths.
Koskela estimates that starting in June, his team was not able to use the few opportunities it had in big spaces in the games. On top of this, HJK conceded goals that took it to the chase.
– In retrospect, it’s easy to say that we should have also practiced playing against low blocks more. However, futis is such a complex game that despite all this, we could still have been ineffective. There is always chance involved, but that evens out in the long run.
Crazy business can change things quickly
When talking with Koskela, you quickly notice that he has a strong desire to reflect on his achievements, successes and failures. He gives a detailed answer when asked more about what he learned as HJK’s head coach.
– There are two things I grew up with. The first is the ability to focus on the things that you can influence. The organization around you can weaken, the everyday working conditions of the team can weaken, but it is difficult to influence them, says Koskela.
– The second is prioritizing things. When playing twice a week, you need to know what information or training is useful for the players, when the goal and expectation is to improve and win all the time.
In one respect, Koskela also sees his limitations as a coach.
– Feedback can never be good enough for different personalities. Player development has always been close to my heart. I put it down to my own strengths throughout my career.
According to Koskela, a mantra is also shaping up to be his strength.
– Someone once said that “you are never as good as someone else says, and you are never as bad as someone else says”. The truth is somewhere in between. He doesn’t believe in compliments or barks, knows how to let it be, he says with a smile.
Now Koskela feels that it is time to look beyond Finland’s borders. He has not set a time limit for the new transfer.
– However, this is a crazy business. In Scandinavia, planning for the next season starts in full force at these moments, and in Europe, the season is properly underway in the weeks after the national team window in September. One result somewhere in Europe on the weekend can open a job. I’m not in a hurry, but things and opportunities open up really quickly in football, explains Koskela.