Dhe eagle owl is a creature with a strong ability to surprise its opponents. This bird of prey not only swoops down, it is also able to “catch up with a fleeing mouse on the ground,” says Wikipedia. Unexpected maneuvers can therefore be expected when the “eagle owls” enter the European Championship with their game against Denmark this Saturday. Since one of these birds of prey caused an almost ten-minute break in an international match between Finland and Belgium in 2007, the debutant from Scandinavia has been nicknamed “Huuhkajat” – the eagle owls.
At that time, the animal suddenly appeared in the stadium and, with its two-meter wingspan, rushed deep over the heads of the players. In between, it rested on the crossbar, and then turned its next round in low flight to the cheering of the audience. The eagle owl was later made an honorary citizen of Helsinki and a lucky charm for footballers. “We have to invite the same eagle owl back to Saint Petersburg on June 21,” suggests goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky; as in the 2-0 win back then, the animal could then help “take the Belgian team apart a bit”.
Hardly anyone believes that the Finns can achieve a lot at this European Championship without such help. Rather, the eagle owls are – together with North Macedonia – the greatest outsider and probably also the most foreign exotic in the field of participants. As well as the Finns play ice hockey, this nation can look back on a fabulous history of losers in football. Since the invention of major international tournaments, Finnish teams have taken part in qualifying rounds for World and European Championships 33 times, the first 32 attempts being unsuccessful. Not even the golden generation around Sami Hyypiä and Jari Litmanen was able to end the years of permanent failure.
Magical power
Only before the event began, luck and skill mixed with the stuff from which so many of the great football stories arise: the magical power of a functioning community. “What we have now is indescribable,” said Hradecky, who plays in the Bundesliga for Bayer Leverkusen. “We are 25 people who are friends, and everyone is allowed to be who they are.”
This is one of the reasons why this team is very popular with the people in Finland who experienced a moment of ecstasy in November 2019. In an article for 11Freunde magazine, captain Tim Sparv describes the completion of the qualification, when the spell was broken with a 3-0 victory over Liechtenstein, as a moment in which “the Finns, actually known for their reserved temperament, went completely crazy” . “A transformation”, a “heroic defense” and “the best team spirit” that he has ever experienced are the foundation of this success, believes Sparv.
A year later, the enthusiasm received a further boost when Finland won a friendly match against world champions France, and things went well in the Nations League too. In the past few weeks, however, they have come under suspicion again of being a notorious losing team. In preparation for the European Championship, Finland only lost, did not score a goal, even the football dwarf Estonia was too strong in the 1-0 defeat last week.
“Ignite faith”
That is “not a sufficient level,” says coach Markku Kanerva. Against the background of decades of suffering, this small series of defeats this spring is nothing more than a triviality. “I went through these shitty phases and it wasn’t that much fun,” says Hradecky. “But at some point, through the difficult time everyone has to experience, you can rekindle the faith at a certain point in time.”
That should work this Saturday against the Danes (6 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and on MagentaTV), who are very close to several Finnish players. At some point in their careers, a number of EM professionals were under contract with a Danish club. Hradecky, for example, who played with his EM roommate Teemu Pukki at Brondby Copenhagen. “That makes this game very important,” says the goalkeeper, but there is no particular rivalry. “Actually, we’ve always been like little brothers.”
Now the Finns want to do what the Icelanders did at the EM 2016: to become outsiders of hearts. The team at that time from the volcanic island in the very north-west of Europe was an “inspiration”, says Hradecky, especially since the Finns are also based on the Icelandic defensive artists in terms of football.
Spectacular football festivals are not to be expected when Finland plays, the main strength of this team is clearly in the art of defending. In six out of ten qualifying games, they did not allow a goal. The offensive powers of the outsider, however, are limited, in front of the 31-year-old Pukki, who has just made a decisive contribution to the promotion of Norwich City to the Premier League with 26 goals. The eagle owl has to help if necessary.
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