Why, oh why, oh why hasn't anyone mentioned this result in a thread?

Finland 0-2 Wales.

Wales contained the Finns attack and scored 2 to boot. A good start to the campaign to go and get 3pts in Helsinki against a team that tripped up both England and Germany in the World Cup qualifiers.

Italy next... *gulp* :D

What if we beat the Italians in Cardiff? I can hope. :D

Originally posted by monkee
Why, oh why, oh why hasn't anyone mentioned this result in a thread?

Finland 0-2 Wales.

I knew you would do it :D

Wales were impressive in churning out a result. Hartson slotted home when a Gary Speed knock down was touched on by Ryan Giggs. Finland rallied and Shefti Kuqi hit the bar with a header, before Robbie Savage brilliantly found Giggs in space and the Man Utd man threaded Simon Davies through to cooly stroke home the second. Finland could have pulled one back when Jari Litmanen hit the post with the header, but Wales could have had more when Bellamy's cross-field ball fell to Simon Davies, whose chip was brilliantly saved by Antti Niemi.

A great result for Wales. This is their first Championship away victory since Mark Hughes first took charge in Minsk 3 years ago in a meaningless game.

Their defence is now much more solid than it once were. Melville, Delaney, Speed and Gabbidon are not exactly world class defenders, with no disrespect, but they work well enough as a unit. Wales are never going to win the World Cup but with this squad they can well make their first major championship since 1958.

Originally posted by Digitarius
but Wales could have had more when Bellamy's cross-field ball fell to Simon Davies, whose chip was brilliantly saved by Antti Niemi.


:( :( :( :(

Originally posted by monkee
Why, oh why, oh why hasn't anyone mentioned this result in a thread?

Finland 0-2 Wales.

Wales contained the Finns attack and scored 2 to boot. A good start to the campaign to go and get 3pts in Helsinki against a team that tripped up both England and Germany in the World Cup qualifiers.

Italy next... *gulp* :D

What if we beat the Italians in Cardiff? I can hope. :D

If we beat the Italians in Cardiff, well, what can I say? :D

Well, we've drawn to Argentina and beat Germany at the Millenium stadium in the past 5 months. But they were only friendlies, it's not impossible though.

Our defense still looks a bit dodgy. But with Giggs, Bellamy, Davies, Hartson and the upcoming Earnshaw we've got the most attacking ability we've had since Hughes, Rush and Saunders. They were all strikers though, we've now got people that can provide as well.

I knew you would do it

What can I say... :D

I was at the match & I noticed that everyone was waiting for us to win against a team which is ranked 80 something in the world. However Wales is a superb team which is very under-rated.

John Hartson played very well and Hyypiä was terrible. I think Finland hit the post at least three times and if our defence would of been a bit more organised we could of won this one. It's ironic because our defensive and goalkeeping departments have been our best. I also think that Finland should of played more aggressively and tried to force their way into the box. We controlled the match once again but we just couldn't score. This is exactly what Wales wants as they are superb on the counter attack.

Finland's problem right now is that we don't have a goal scorer with Mikael Forssell injured. It is a big problem for Finnish football right now and there has been a lot of talk in the media about who to play up-front.

The Finnish supporters underestimated Wales and I don't really think anyone though we'd loose although we knew you had a great squad. We were a far cry from the team that beat Portugal, Greece and Belgium by 5-1.

This is a great disappointment for us but at least we can look at the "brighter" side of things. Yugoslavia were thrashed in a freindly and Sweden tied with Latvia. :D

I think the biggest crowd during saturday's euro qualifiers was in Helsinki. 37,000

Finland has to call-up Antti Sumiala and Utrecht's Paulus Roiha for the Azer-match as we need to try new options up-front. Johansson and Kuqi haven't impressed.

Wales were superb at that match. I saw the highlights too. Too bad for Finland though.

Here are some pictures from the Finland-Wales match (Helsinki Olympiastadion) for your overall enjoyment :

http://213.28.202.90/palloliitto/TJPBin/9240.jpg

http://www.helsinki.fi/~tmpartan/soihtu.jpg

http://213.28.202.90/palloliitto/TJPBin/9241.jpg

It is strictly forbidden to take flares with you to the stadium. Somehow some Finnish supporters managed to sneak some in. They also managed to burn one of the seats which wasn't very smart. 4 fans were arrested. After that 50 Wales supporters caused trouble in the city centre when they clashed with Finnish fans at the Central railway station.

The atmosphere was quite good with 37,000 people in attendance.

They (Suomi) sucked. Too bad I have a ticket to the Azerbaidzzhjprrgan (whatever) game.

Hyypiä is an over-respected, over-rated arrogant punk.

OK maybe not. But that was my initial reaction.

No, I still believe that Finland will make it to Euro 2004!!

Keep up the spirit, erno!