Greece beat Finland 3–0 in the opening of the Nations League. Lukas Hradecky scored Greece’s opening goal, but according to the captain, everyone should also look in the mirror.
Roope Visuri,
Riku Salminen
Huuhkajat started this season’s Nations League with a minor win, when Greece rolled to victory 3–0 at home. Fotis Ioannidis scored two goals. The opening goal was harsh, as it was created by the captain Lukas Hradecky about the mistake. Ioannidis was sharp in the situation and led Greece to the lead. Finland never recovered from that.
Hradecky took Greece’s opening goal on his own.
– There is a statistical probability that the goalkeeper is involved in some goal in some way. It was a pretty bad mistake on my part. Our game stopped there, Hradecky said.
Hradecky regretted that Finland was unable to create dangerous scoring chances. In the match, Finland did not have a single scoring attempt towards the goal. In total, there were seven scoring attempts.
– Couldn’t get to decisive shooting positions in the attacking third. This was not a model start. Everyone needs to look in the mirror. This cannot continue like this, Hradecky said.
– Getting into attacking situations seems difficult for us and has been for some time. Of course, on the defensive end, mistakes must be kept to a minimum. You won’t succeed at this level if you don’t do things well. The overall performance as a collective was unfortunately poor.
For Finland, the opening of the Nations League was supposed to be a kind of new beginning. Markku Kanerva continues as Huuhkajie’s head coach, but otherwise the coaching team has changed.
However, according to Hradecky, the trained new nuances were not well visible on the field.
– We couldn’t get them on the field for one reason or another. I have to go through a lot of things. I didn’t expect this.
Huuhkaj also saw an interesting national team debutant, who recently received a Finnish passport, as a right full-back Adam Ståhl.
– It is difficult to do an in-depth analysis right away. Obviously we weren’t good enough to lose 0-3. We started very well. It was a bit of bad luck that they led 2-0 at the break. It was a tough place to be two goals behind at halftime.
He felt that he had adapted reasonably well to playing in Finland. Ståhl was disappointed with the result, but was happy with his debut.
– This was a big thing in my career, Ståhl said.
Kanerva conceded a nasty setback
Finland’s head coach Markku Kanerva was also asked after the match about the brutal defeat.
– Is 3–0 or 6–0 brutal? Of course we are disappointed. The opponent was better and efficient in his finishing, Kanerva acknowledged.
– The match did not start as hoped. For Luke (Hradecky) was a nasty mistake. Thanks to a brave press, Greece also got to good counterattacks, Kanerva clarified the course of the match.
Kanerva did not go further to analyze the reasons for the loss, but wanted to take a closer look at the individual situations and then draw conclusions.
One thing I missed was that of the midfielders Kairinen too was injured in the preparatory training for the match. Rasmus Schuller had to be substituted in the middle of the game due to an injury. Kairis will not be seen in Tuesday’s match against England.
– This doesn’t look very good. Before this League of Nations Daniel Håkans and Nikolai Alho were also left out. I hope there will be no more injuries, Kanerva stated.
Replaced Kaan in the starting line-up Matti Peltola admitted the harsh facts about Huuhkajie’s playing.
– A lot of new things have been trained as a team. The result shows that there is still a lot to train for in the future, Peltola described.
He didn’t give himself a clean slate either.
– Still, this cannot come as a surprise that we don’t play the same way as before. I wouldn’t want to go behind that, Peltola stated.
Huuhkajat continues the Nations League on Tuesday with an away match against England.
– The positive thing is that the next match will come quickly. Now everyone has to turn their eyes to the dawn of Tuesday, Peltola formulated.