On Thursday, HJK will face Dinamo Minsk, supported by the Belarusian state, in the Conference League match. The representatives of the club were silent at the press conference.
Micke Suopuro,
Yevgeny Bogdanov
A controversial football match will be played in Helsinki on Thursday.
The reason is not the home team HJK, which is looking for its opening win of the season in the Conference League. The controversy is caused by the opponent who comes from Belarus.
The country has openly supported Vladimir Putin Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and is therefore closed from, among other things, the Olympics and international ice hockey national team activities. However, Belarus has not been closed off from international football.
A controversial team from a controversial country playing in Finland is a remarkable case.
Novosti reporter Yevgeny Bogdanov was supposed to ask the visitors’ players and coaching staff several questions about something other than football at Wednesday’s press conference.
Questions were asked, but fewer answers were given.
Dinamo’s coach Vadim Skripchenko emphasized right at the beginning of the press conference that he only wants to talk about football.
You play your Conference League home match in Azerbaijan. How does it affect the team? Why was this country chosen? What is it like to play without the support of the fans? And what do you think about the team not being allowed to play their home matches in Belarus?
– I will only answer the first part of your question. There are two points here. We organize Conference League matches in Azerbaijan. We are well received in that country. The preparation for the match there made a good impression. That’s why we chose that country. We played one match there and everything went well. And another point is logistics. From Minsk we can get directly to Baku.
I understand that you only want to discuss football, but how does the current geopolitical situation affect your team?
– Questions only about the match, thank you, Skripchenko acknowledged.
What if some team [Konferenssiliigassa] refuses to play with you for political reasons? What kind of feelings would it evoke? It’s about your preparation.
– We don’t live in an “if” state. We participate in a serious competition, that’s why we prepare for every match.
The HJK camp focused on football
From the point of view of HJK, the situation is contradictory when viewed from the outside. Europels are valuable for the club and the players. HJK needs points from its six matches in the preliminary round in order to advance to the next round of the 24 best teams.
On the other hand, the opponent is a Belarusian club. Refusal to play the match would mean withdrawing from the Conference League and thereby giving up the potentially significant money pot.
The HJK camp did not take a position on whether Belarus should also be banned from football. Uefa has decided that Minsk can play.
– My opinion does not matter. I’m not getting into politics. I work for HJK, which plays in the Conference League, a league under UEFA. It’s a terrible thing what’s happening there (Ukraine), but I’m talking about football, head coach Toni Korkeakunnas stated at the press conference.
Minsk and HJK lost their opening matches in the Conference League. The season in the domestic main league was disappointing for HJK. It would still be possible to turn the tide in the European games, but it would require a win – Minsk cannot afford to lose at home.
The preparation was somewhat affected by the fact that the HJK camp did not get much match tapes from Minsk, which leads the main league in Belarus, because Minsk plays outside the international radar in its home country.
– They score most of their goals from special situations. That’s what we’re focused on. In home matches, we have been really strong in European games. We have always been able to put the visitors in a tight spot. The goal is a home win, Korkeakunnas emphasized.
For HJK, the game against Minsk also means the completion of a milestone. After the evening, HJK has played around 200 matches on Euro courts.
After the Minsk match, HJK will still face Slovenian Olimpija Ljubljana and Norwegian Molde in the Conference League at home, as well as Greek Panathinaikos and Spanish Betis away.
There are no more groups in the Euro competitions, but all 36 teams are in the same standings. After the preliminary round, the eight best teams go directly to the quarterfinals, and those who finished 9th to 23rd play each other in pairs of matches for the other eight places in the quarterfinals.