Finland will meet Slovenia in the European football qualifying match in Ljubljana on Saturday. will show the match live, the studio broadcast of the fight starts at 18:30 on TV2 and Areena.
LJUBLJANA. Arto Paasilinna, Matti Nykänen and the obsession with success regarding national football teams. At least these things unite Finland and Slovenia.
On Saturday, the two countries will meet in one of the most important football matches in the recent history of both countries, when Huuhkajat will be looking for a place in next summer’s European Championships against Slovenia.
The capitals Helsinki and Ljubljana are about 2,150 kilometers apart as the crow flies, but the countries located in the far north and the northern tip of the Balkan Peninsula have things in common.
Why is Finland a surprisingly familiar country to Slovenians in sports and outside of it? Do Slovenians know anything about Finnish football or Huuhkaji?
Finnish humor sells
The capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, has a population similar to that of Espoo. The historical place, which is one of the smallest capitals in Europe, is sunny even in October, when the temperature comfortably rises above 20 degrees.
At least the road is suitable for soccer, but the upcoming EC qualifying match is nowhere to be seen. One big roadside ad, that’s all.
So let’s start with what Slovenians know about Finns.
On the main street of Ljubljana, Slovenska cesta, there is a large bookstore Mladinska Knjiga, where you can find plenty of Finnish things upstairs.
Na lovu, za pomini (Life is short, Rytkönen is long) can be found immediately on the shelf of foreign writers rather than on a tray. The late author Arto Paasilinna still enjoys solid popularity in Slovenia.
– The last of his books was translated into Slovenian last year, by a seller working in a bookstore Fin tells.
Paasilinna has been translated into more than 40 languages. But still, why on earth is Paasilinna so popular in Slovenia?
– I think the main reason is the light-hearted humor of his books. Not many writers in this area have written in the same way, and I can’t think of many foreigners who do the same, Eva thinks.
So at least Finnish humor bites Slovenians. Eva has also heard about the upcoming game between Finland and Slovenia, but she doesn’t know anything else about Huuhkaj.
Sarajevo ’84
– Oh, I didn’t even know that such a game was played, wonders the employee of the traditional Sarajevo ’84 restaurant in the center of Ljubljana.
A moment earlier, he had wondered what the hell is going on when there have been so many Finns in the restaurant in recent days.
When you tell a restaurant worker about the upcoming EC qualifying match, he hasn’t heard about the whole match.
On the other hand, sports other than football are more familiar. You also believe it when you look at the walls of the restaurant.
The basement restaurant, which serves traditional Bosnian food, is lined with newspaper clippings published during the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics.
Finnish names flash steadily.
Three-time Olympic champion from the Sarajevo Olympics, Marja-Liisa Hämäläinen (now Kirvesniemi) has received the title after its third gold: “Hämäläinen, once again”.
– Matti Nykänen is a familiar name, because ski jumping is a big deal for us too, the man shouts from behind the counter.
Nykänen’s name can be found on the wall several times, once as “Mati Nikenen”. Nykänen took two Olympic medals, gold and silver, from the 1984 Games.
Madness for success unites
– Yep, it’s a big sport for us. But Planica’s flying hill is more than our own Oktoberfest. There are also a lot of people who don’t care about sports, a reporter for Slovenian sports media Ekipa24 Andrej Miljkovic states.
The training sessions of the Slovenian national football team before the match day are underway on the field of Nacionalni nogometni center, the National Football Center in Finnish.
The surprising autumn temperature banishes thoughts of hill jumping elsewhere. Slovenia’s training center is a magnificent complex, with a backdrop of rugged mountain scenery. The distance from the capital to the center is about 40 kilometers.
Unlike the previous interviewees, Miljkovic knows not only ski jumpers and writers, but soccer players from Finland. Because of his work, of course.
Slovenia is an exceptional sports country in many ways. The state of only about two million inhabitants has produced several top athletes over the years, especially in ball sports.
In football, it has appeared in prestigious men’s competitions three times: twice in the World Cup (2002 and 2010) and once in the European Championship (2000). However, the drug has declined since the beginning of the 2000s.
– Due to weaker results, people have not gathered in the same way en masse behind the teams. Slovenians are proud of their national teams, but value success, Miljkovic says.
This phenomenon also sounds Finnish.
This time the Slovenians are arriving in droves for the game they watched against Finland. The Vetava Stozice stadium, which holds around 16,000 spectators, is sold out. More than a thousand Finns are coming.
Always the bad Nordic countries
Finland also unexpectedly arouses excitement among Slovenians.
– In recent years, we haven’t done very well against the Nordic national teams, Miljkovic says.
The latest proof of this is the loss in June in Helsinki. Miljkovic believes that the calmness and ability of Finns and other Nordics to endure in tough places is poisonous to Slovenians.
– If I were to describe this succinctly, there is no gray here on the emotional side. There is only white or black. All or nothing. It sometimes makes things challenging in terms of sports, especially against teams like Finland, who spend their time strictly in matches, he reflects.
The struggle of June seems to have left a deep impression on Slovenians in many ways. Let’s ask a man about the Finnish men’s national football team, who you’d think would know something about it.
Slovenian head coach Matjaz Kek gives a nice, but somewhat mysterious answer when asked what the June match against Finland taught him.
– After that match, our team reacted to the defeat in the right way. For our part, I expect a positive result from this match. We know how high-quality the Finnish team is, but we have the home advantage in this match, Kek says.
You can see what Ljubljana’s surprising connections to Finland look like in the street view on Friday, October 13, on the Sports screen.