A total demolition of Greece and Finland played a very poor second half. We were leading already 4-1 at half-time. Antti Niemi made a fabulous save near the end of the match which in my opinion is the save of the year. If anyone saw it what did you think?
Greece was very poor and had absolutely no chances on the pitch just like Belgium a few weeks ago against us.
EURO 2004 HERE WE COME !

yeah, I was wrong last year...


anyway, whatever. Great job.

and we beat the Faroe Islands! OF course they are not exactly Greece, but considering how poorly and unimpressive we played this WC qualifiers, I am glad we beat Faroe Islands..

Never underestimate Finland at home we haven't lost at home for two years.
Not even Germany or England have been victorious.

if you will always say that "Germany and England didn't beat us at home!!" with that kind of excitement, Finland will never be amongst the best.. Come on, you guys beat Greece 5:1, have some respect for your country :D If I were you, I would consider the draw with England and Germany at home as a poor result... :D.

great job with Greece, though.. Bad year for Greeks, I guess. They should rebound next qualifiers - you guys lost to Russia 6:0 (damn I LOVE to remind you of this one :D) not so long ago at home, and now you are a power to be reckoned with...

[ 09-05-2001: Message edited by: the -Russian Rocket- ]

Ipswich can beat ya

nice
it's a shame Finland didn't kick start their WC2002 campaign they could have easily finished above Germany
oh well...

Very nice performance and I saw the save against Greece by Niemi and I agree...it was one of the best saves in my book :cool:
Nice to see Jari score again, he still has a red/white heart (Ajax), that's what he tells the Dutch media :D :D
Shame that they are not qualified to go through instead of those DAMN Germans :rolleyes:

Looks like England should have no probs knocking over Greece to take top spot because with Finalnd showing they aren't a bad side I can't see Germany beating the Fins but 7 or 8 cause England have a 6 goal better goal difference at the moment.

It's a shame Albania didn't win over England they had a good performance. It's not such a bad team as many may think. Albania lost to Finland 0-2 at home and they managed a 2-0 loss to England at home.
Well Finland will surely make it to the next EURO games providing they don't get an impossible group.

if Antti Niemi is said to have made save of th year(which he probably has since he is so good) then you should have seen this save he made from a Johan Mjallby header v sellik last season.
world class.(i didnt see the game v greece)though knowing Antti he probably has made save of the year.

he'll need to do the same on saturday.we play rangers at home (his old club,incidentally)

Congrats to Finland...


You guys played a good game, and looked strong. But please do not get carried away with this win. Greece did not play at all. Nobody cared about this game, honestly. Any team in the world could have beaten us on that day. Because nobody cared. The f****** basterds...they have no pride. They have no heart. I mean they literally didn't try at all. Only 1-2 players (Karagounis had a nice goal and played hard) tried. The rest were a bunch of wankers. It really hurts me to not only see them lose, but to see them lose playing with no heart and not trying. Especially to an average team.


It also didn't help that Rehaggel used a 4-3-3 formation. :eek: no Greek team can play that offensive...I guess it can be called a learning experience. lol


But Rehaggel has promise. He is already taking the right steps to improving the team. He recalled maybe the best Greek Striker in Nikolaidis back, and also the most skilled midfielder in Tsartas. They didn't play vs Finland, but have both stated they are ready to re-join the NT. Also he said he will be using alot of the U-21 boys. THANK GOD!!!

The funny thing is, the night before Greece U-21 beat Finland 3-0 and toped the group. They play so hard and with so much p***ion. Thank god Rehaggel has the sense to call some of them up! He will fix things, I am sure of that. 2004 will be interesting, it will be a new Greece thats for sure. How good we do not know. 5-1 may just be a blessing in disguse. He now knows the players that won't put there hearts into it.


Anyway like I said, good game from Finland. Congrats, definatly the better side.

Christos: the same could be said about Russian intl. hockey team - lately they are a bunch of over-priced cry-babies who say that "they play for country with honor", but mean: "we don't give a sh-i-t about it, it doesn't increase our salary". LAst WC the players from the Russian league dominated the team, not the NHL-ers, and the RHL-ers were the ones that have got Russia to the quarterfinals, at least.


PS. funny you couldn't write the word pa-ssion with an "a" there and two "s"'s following it. The boards have got some weird rules lately; no signatures, forums separated, and no swearing even with a word "as-s".

I really don'tthink that's a good excuse. This game has importance because you are put into a better pool for the Euro qualifiers. Therefore playing against easy teams. Don't say Finland is an average team afer such bad excuses and then a pretty insulting comment. An average team doesn't lead Germany 2-0 at half-time. A average team doesn't lead England in England 1-0. An average team surely doesn't thrash Belgium and Greece 4-1 and 5-1 respectively.
If tis game wasn't important for Greece why are they considering firing Rehagel after his first game in charge?
Bad excuses admit it Greece hardly showed any skill and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I am not making an excuse. It's true...


And don't fool yourself. Finland IS an average team. Not like my team is any better. At the moment it is under-average. Which u have no idea how much it pains me to say that.


Look the fact of the matter is, if Finland wasn't average they would have BEAT Germany and BEAT England...They would also be in the WC right now...To the powers in the world Finland is average. Just a fact. I am not trying to "diss" you here, I am saying the truth.

PS Rehaggel has already made some good moves. I think he might actually improve these wankers.

A average team doesn't lead England in England 1-0. An average team surely doesn't thrash Belgium and Greece 4-1 and 5-1 respectively

Let me remind u, it was just a friendly and our defence was changed on 4(!) places.
Besides i dont care about losing a friendly as long we win our WCQ like this weekend we beated Scotland, with our ussual defence. :cool:

well christos you have ap point. But England for example has way more registered football players than we have people in our country and we still manage to draw with them. Look at the states as an example they have a lot and I mean a lot of people and they still suck in football. No offence to Americans but this is the truth.
Greek league football on the other hand is high quality.

so what that Americans suck in soccer? They are good in everything else. Soccer (football, sorry) is just NOT American sport. What, we will now diss China with its billion people because they suck in baseball, and some small Dominican Republic are good in it?

Croatia, for instance has a lesser population than Finland - and I would call them a slightly-above mediocre team (even with the WC-98 capaign).. Ireland have, what, 4 million citizens too? Look how good they are.. Of course Finland also has hockey on the highest level, unlike those two, but you should get my point..

I actually would call Russia a mediocre team, but since we qualified for the WC, I have all the rights to say that we are "slightly" better than just mediocre. :D :D

Goodmin everything else they lost to Finland in ice-hockey many times and with their best team in Nagano while we came third.