[THREAD] What lineups and tactics could we see Finland using at the EURO 21 and another stuff and history about the national team. (I know not everyone’s cup of tea but give it a go and make sure to retweet, like and follow if you enjoyed!)

First of all let’s start with the basic history of the Finnish national team. This is indeed our first major tournament ever and we celebrated it like we won the whole thing. Football is not the biggest sport here with sports like ice hockey and floorball being very popular.

Closest we ever got to a major tournament was in 1997 when in the last group game against Hungary when we needed a win to qualify and in the 90th min we scored the best own goal ever. Game ended 1-1. Here’s the video, the own goal happens at 1:26

We had our golden years in around 94-2006 and had great players like Litmanen and Hyypiä, and good players like Forsell, Niemi and Johansson but the big names didn’t manage to carry the team and some could argue it made the team worse having too many big names.

After decades of humiliation in every qualifier, our new coach Markku Kanerva made a big decision in 2018 and dropped many big names off the national team. Moisander,Ring,Hetemaj and Eremenko were all dropped before the nations league and many fans were baffled by the decision.

After years of subpar performances from our so called best players he had enough and started to call up younger and less know players, and it turned out to be the best decision he could have made, and he led us to our first major tournament and won us our nations league group.

Now to the present. Our goal scoring majorly was through Teemu Pukki with him scoring 10 out of our 18 goals in the qualifiers. Premier League fans will know all about how dangerous he can be when he gets the service, and no he’s not a one month wonder like some would tell you.

Our second best strikes is Joel Pohjanpalo who missed almost the whole qualifiers when he was injured for over two years. He’s very clinical and HSV and Leverkusen fans will confirm it. Was very good in 16/17 but got injured and played only a handful of games in 3 seasons

Our defence is the one of the weak points of the team with our two starting CBs being both over 32 and not blessed with pace. Arajuuri and Toivio are 100% gonna start but wouldn’t mind if we gave a go to Lam or one of the Väisänen brothers. All under 25 and have speed.

Like I said they are pretty slow so I’m already having nightmares of Hazard and Lukaku running at them but we play very deep system with 8-9 players under the ball, but we can get exposed on counter attacks very easily.

Kanerva has made us a very stable defending team when the other teams like to keep possession and are very hard to break down which was shown against , and with them having very little chances. We don’t really create too much but we are very clinical with our chances

Our game plan is very counter attack based and relys heavily on our midfield four to be on top of their game. They have a very tough job on defending and also attacking and have to run crazy amounts every game. Key part of this is our own Kante, ex gunner Glen Kamara

Probably our most important player with Pukki and Hradecky. His position in the NT is a b2b with our counter attacks most often starting with him winning the ball and playing it to our wingers. Rangers fans will tell you all about how good he is. Big move waits for him!

Now I n my opinion one of the most underrated goalkeepers in today’s game, Lukas Hradecky. With 5.6 saves per game, 81% pass accuracy and 6 clean sheets in 9 games made him one of the best keepers in the qualifiers. Also his ball playing ability is one of the best. Not even bias.

We have a very tough group with Denmark, Russia and Belgium. Also the matches are played in St. Peterburg and Copenhagen so that’s already gone advantage to Russia and Denmark. I have full faith on Finland to do well and surprise a lot of people!

Now on the lineups. It’s hard to tell what formation we’re gonna use as we played 4-4-2 and 5-4-1 in the qualifiers, but I think I’m edging towards the very defensive 5-4-1 formation. When attacking it turns into 3-4-3 but defending only Pukki stays close to the halfway line

Another alternative is 4-4-2 where I can see Raitala playing instead of Taylor as Taylor is a RWB and not so good at defending. Pohjanpalo will play as a target man and when defending Pukki will drop lower so we’ll have the men for quick counter attacks to work.

In a 4-4-2 I can see Schuller coming in for Sparv, our captain as he’s already 34 next summer and I’m not convinced he has the legs to play when we only have 4 defenders behind him. Also he could start as a LCB in 5-4-1 with Schuller in midfield.

Here’s some alternatives we could see playing in the euros too. Only Uronen, Pukki, Lod and Hradecky are guaranteed a starting spot in my opinion. We have some good young talent coming through who could have a spot on the plane but more of them in the future.

End of thread! Conclusion, we have to be on top of our game and our well drilled system to work. On the plus side no manager has a clue about our tactics and players so we could surprise a lot of people next summer. Sorry if this was long, RTs and likes appreciated.