Josko joku voisi ottaa kopion tänne. Nämä free trial -rekisteröinnit yhden jutun takia ovat vahvasti kuppaisinta koskaan -kategorian juttuja..,
Janne Hypponen looks over KTP’s Arto Tolsa Areena as he contemplates his answer. He is a Kotka man, a harbour guy, and his eyes are moistening. The pride on his face says even more than his glowing words.
This is the effect Teemu Pukki is having on his home town, and it is spreading.
The Norwich City striker did something even more remarkable than scoring a Premier League hat-trick in only his second game in the English top flight: he made Finland’s football fans wait six hours to watch Liverpool’s game at Southampton.
The country’s chief sports broadcaster is allowed to show one Premier League game live and they religiously pick the Reds. The debate raged as soon as Norwich’s 3pm kick-off was announced as top billing. Pukki proved they made the right decision.
It’s not just television. Norwich’s No 22 is on the front page of numerous magazines and discussed by radio presenters. Everyone likes him. Where Finnish children were once pretending to be Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the playground, they now want to be Teemu Pukki.
Even the first song to blurt out on Finnish radio come Tuesday morning is Aya Nakamura’s single ‘Pookie’, although that seems more of a heightened coincidence.
The five-port archipelago of Kotka, 135km east along the coast from Helsinki, is home to 50,000 residents, fine fishing, one of two seafaring schools in the country and more boats than houses. It is a city of sailors and stories but much more of a rarity in Finland, it is ruled by football. Only basketball comes close to competing for attention. This week the gentle summer sun and cool breeze are soothing Kotka’s hangover from this year’s Meripaivat festival after 300,000 people gathered in the city, enjoying each other’s company with music and beers.
Kotka’s proud-yet-complicated football club is Kotkan Tyovaen Palloilijat, where past financial troubles had forced an offshoot, FC KooTeePee. The pair have since reemerged. KTP are as big as any club currently in Ykkonen, Finland’s second tier. Derby rivals to MyPa Myllykoski, the former home of Jari Litmanen and Sami Hyypia, KTP’s 4,700 capacity home is named after Finnish football legend Arto Tolsa, who hailed from Kotka and burned brightly during his career in Belgium with K. Beerschot VAC, before alcoholism led to his death in 1989 at the age of 43.
The stadium was also home to a merchandise stall that, until very recently, had been run for two decades by Pukki’s mother Teija.
Pub Jaakko, a short walk from the market square and KTP’s home, is bedecked in memorabilia and action photos of Finnish sports stars. Pukki’s shirts are centre stage, but you have to look harder for pictures of the striker. “This is Teemu’s town,” asserts a man at the bar.
Many of Pukki’s family and close friends still live in the city. He first played football outside his Hovinsaari home from the age of three and was already running rings around his friends. The same patch of grass became a ski slope in the winter.
By the age of five, Pukki was playing for his local team, Kotkan Nappulat-Saaren Pojat, and having kickabouts on the grass field beside Hovinsaaren Koulu, his primary school. For some, this is the place that should be named in Pukki’s honour: a relatively deprived area that takes huge pride in having born a national hero. At present, the honour goes to a small pitch in the more wealthy Hirssaari.
The tributes are unlikely to stop there. Days after Pukki’s hat-trick against Newcastle, Kotka councillor Joona Mielonen proposed Ruonalan Halli, the indoor pitch where KTP train in the winter, be renamed after Finland’s No 10. The process takes six months, although the council are also working on other plans for their football export.
Growing up, Pukki’s reputation often preceded him. His sporting prowess was discovered during his time at Langinkoski High School, where an innovative sports academy structure was set up by principal and recent Finland basketball Hall of Fame inductee, Risto Piipari. It has since spread across Finland, is credited with numerous successes and did KTP as many favours as Pukki.
After two days of sports acumen testing used to recruit 20 pupils each year at Kotka’s Etela-Kymenlaakson Urheiluakatemia, Pukki’s results were as good as anyone’s. The academy worked with KTP to make sure football sessions were co-ordinated with other sports and studies, and Pukki has since been inducted as the eighth member of the academy’s Hall of Fame. Piipari was the second, with the first being Janne Silander, the hugely respected man who ran the academy from its start and during Pukki’s time. He died of a brain tumour in 2011 at the age of 41.
“Teemu played all sports, and it helped,” says Piipari. “I only gave him the same opportunities I tried to give to everyone else. I take no credit for what he has done, but he is an example to everyone. He has never gone away from his ideals and has earned everything he has got.”
Former Swedish teacher Heidi Honkanen has since replaced the retired Piipari, who lives on one of Kotka’s small islands. Honkanen jokes that she is now known as “the former Swedish teacher of Teemu Pukki”. She doesn’t mind.
Of the 24 players in KTP’s first-team squad, 18 had come through Kotka’s junior levels. The head coach Hypponen and his assistant Jari-Pekka Gummerus heard of Pukki’s progress before they saw him in action — the recurring theme of Pukki’s early career — as he took on players four years his senior.
The pair handed Pukki his senior chance, with a first-team debut and first goals coming in the 2005 winter league while he was still 15. Within two years Pukki had been named Finland’s boys player of the year, become the first player born in the 1990s to score in the Finnish top tier, been compared to Jari Litmanen — like any young Finnish prospect — and signed by Sevilla.
“I remember him the first time,” says Hypponen. “We had the indoor hall, he was 12 and everything looked so easy. He was very quick, but even now he looks similar. The movement, everything he does in a game; it was the same when he went into first-team training. I told all the players they should tackle him to get him tougher because he needed to get better physically, but they told me they couldn’t because he was too fast. His finishing, dribbling… it was so natural.”
Pukki’s first goal at home for KTP is remembered for a supporter breaking their finger in the celebrations.
“The junior coaches told us about Teemu and when we saw him, we understood,” adds Gummerus of the shy 15-year-old boy with thin legs and flowing, curly blonde locks that had joined their squad for training in 2005 ahead of their top-flight campaign. “He was ready from the first moment he arrived in the team.
“The Litmanen comparisons were lazy. If you are good enough you get prizes, but you need to see behind the prizes. What sort of work do you have to do, and what have you done in order to get those prizes? They don’t come for free. Even before he earned that award, he was being scouted.”
Hypponen recalls his favourite Pukki moment. It was April and KTP’s first game of the 2006 Veikkausliiga, at home to the mighty HJK Helsinki.
Pukki, who had just turned 16, came on for Niko Ikavalko with the score 1-1 and just a few minutes remaining. It was enough time to give HJK’s centre backs a rough ride, win an injury-time free-kick and then watch Pukki’s long-time friend and now agent, Teemu Turunen, flash home the winning goal and a marquee victory. Hypponen adds: “It was like his game for Norwich at Liverpool; his first time against a big club, but it was no problem. That was his place. I saw it immediately.”
Pukki and Turunen have since paid for an extra football coach at Kotka’s sports academy.
Ikavalko was a promising Finnish forward. Another to come through KTP’s youth system and a fellow under-20 international, until he sustained the first in a series of knee injuries.
The 31-year-old still lives in Kotka and plays for MyPa, while working as a teaching assistant. He remains good friends with Pukki and he is waiting in their favourite restaurant, Tai Hing — although the nearby Erkan pizzeria was more likely to host them while they were growing up.
Stories of Pukki turning up at an airport without his passport, booking his friends flights for a week after they needed them and relying on his mother to wash his clothes while he was playing in Brondby just a few years ago, soon follow. The pair have known each other since Pukki arrived in KTP’s first team, where Ikavalko, his elder by two years, was waiting.
“I had just got to the first team, and then I heard there was this boy who was good in his age groups,” says Ikavalko. “We straight away connected. He was always the kind guy. He wasn’t the sort who would talk a lot in the locker room. He was shy and quiet, he might laugh if someone said something. Even in training if someone came to hit him, he’d just say OK and score in the next situation. But straight away you could see the first-team level was right for him.
“On the pitch you knew straight away what he was doing. I knew where he was moving and could pass the ball there. He was that guy who did what you said to him. He did everything. If you asked him to get the ball from the river, he would get it! I’m joking, but he has never complained about anything. I’ve never heard him complain. Ever.”
Pukki’s move to La Liga in January 2008 cost Sevilla more than £1 million: a record Veikkausliiga sale. As a 17-year-old his expected breakthrough did not really come. First-team competition was tough, game time was difficult to come by and although Pukki’s mother joined him in Spain, his spell ended by the end of August 2010 as he made the rare step back to Finland by signing for HJK.
If Kotka was Pukki’s start, Helsinki was his rebirth. By this point many people had heard of Teemu Pukki, but not many had actually seen him play. That was all about to change.
“A lot of times you see players who are pretty good at everything, but I think Teemu has one or two things where he is amazing; that distinct him from the others,” says former Crystal Palace midfielder Aki Riihilahti, Pukki’s former HJK team-mate and now the club’s sporting director.
“His timing of movement is very special. As a midfielder, even before the ball comes to you he starts his movement. He makes the decisions for other players. He’s as quick with or without the ball and at a very high speed, he still has a very accurate shot.”
It starts to become clear why things may not have worked out as well as they could have for Pukki at Sevilla. The Kotka boy is laid-back. People’s warmth and trust fuels his form, and a bad mood saps it. Ruthless competition for a young Pukki was unlikely to bring the best out of him, despite such a tempting step up. Playing in La Liga was the one move Pukki always wanted.
“I’m not sure Teemu was a competitor by nature,” Riihilahti told The Athletic. “He goes on the pitch to have fun and he doesn’t take too much pressure from outside. Some things used to be just nice for him, but now I see he is much more professional and clinical in his approach. Normally when you are young you are most hungry for goals, but I think Teemu has become even hungrier.
“Sometimes when a player leaves, for example Finland to a higher step, they don’t dare take a little step back — and he took it, just to play and be on the pitch. Then he took a massive step forwards with Schalke. At Celtic he was good but there was high competition, so he dared to take another step backwards to Brondby and then again he flourished, and made a big step to Norwich and now the Premier League.
“I use this as an example to many players here, that when you feel you just need to be somewhere because of the status of it, that’s a problem. I really must congratulate him and his closest people, because Norwich is the perfect environment for him. He’s trusted, he has the confidence that the team plays how he does, and that’s what Teemu needs. If he takes a step somewhere else, I’m not sure he could have maximised the fantastic ability he has.”
Antti Muurinen’s second spell as head coach at HJK was perfectly timed for Pukki. The former Finland manager gave Pukki space, constructive feedback and understood how to make the striker tick.
“Teemu came in 2010 and at the time he wasn’t very happy,” Muurinen told The Athletic. “He’d not done so well in Sevilla but he had time to develop at HJK. He was shy and not so strong or aggressive, but perhaps he didn’t know what he wanted at that time. But I knew he was a very good player, talented and skilful.
“The biggest thing HJK contributed was to get his confidence back and get him enjoying his football again. He was so easy to coach and I’m very proud of him now, not just as a footballer but as a human being.”
Pukki’s performances for HJK against Schalke in qualifying for the 2011 Champions League (see the below video) were a new high – “He killed them in the first leg,” smiles Riihilahti – and it led to Pukki’s switch to Gelsenkirchen. Few players leave Finland for a fee anywhere near £1 million. Pukki had now exceeded that benchmark for a second time.
He still remains popular at Schalke, while Celtic was a tougher story. Like HJK, Brondby offered Pukki the chance to get serious with his football. He felt at home and important, and it paved the way for his flying form at Norwich since arriving as a free agent in the summer of 2018, in a similar environment. With his wife and daughter living with him in Norwich, Pukki will feel a similar warmth to that of Kotka, and it shows in how comfortable and productive his football has been.
Markku Kanerva is a renowned football analyst. Finland’s international manager is perched on a chair at his office at Suomen Palloliitto — the Finnish FA — with a short paper note of Pukki’s international career. The strands are more simple to follow than the striker’s club trajectory.
Kanerva was Finland’s Under-20 and Under-21 boss, with Hypponen as his assistant, when he first coached Pukki in February 2008. Pukki played 90 minutes on his Under-20 debut against Portugal and the plan was for him to rest rather than play in the following day’s clash with Turkey. Instead, Ikavalko picked up his first knee injury after four minutes and Pukki’s rest was over. They were two games to convince Kanerva that Pukki was ready for Under-21 action at the age of 17, making his debut against Belarus in the June.
Only a year on from his under-20 bow, Pukki came on for Litmanen in Japan to make his full international debut, aged 18, and by 2011 a 21-year-old Pukki was a regular full international with six years of senior football under his belt.
Kanerva’s talk of Pukki’s past is partially distracted by his future. Finland have two home Euro 2020 qualifiers on the horizon against Greece and Italy. Pukki’s importance to both Norwich and his country is hard to adequately quantify.
“When he made his KTP debut I thought, ‘OK, who’s this guy?'” Kanerva told The Athletic. “You could see quite early on that he was a goalscorer and he had that vision. But many were wondering whether he would be physically good enough to play in the higher leagues. Sevilla taught him a lot about how to be a real pro, and then I think it was a good step to come back to HJK and get his confidence back.
“In the beginning when Teemu missed a good scoring chance, he was very disappointed and maybe even angry with himself. Nowadays he can laugh and knows he will put the next one in. That tells me a bit about his mental growth.”
Kanerva turns over his notes to reveal a football pitch, ready for the drawing of tactical instructions. He proceeds to draw Pukki’s 91st-minute winner over Estonia in Tallinn from October 2018, as well as the direction of the following celebrations from the supporters and coaching staff. It was another big moment delivered by Pukki.
The Finland manager beams at Pukki’s enjoyment at joining up with the national side, at still taking coaching and feedback so well, and his warm handshakes and hugs for his team-mates whenever they are back together. It makes Pukki a quiet leader for Finland in the same way he played his part in leading an unfancied Norwich squad to unlikely Championship domination.
Tero Vaatainen, of the Finnish Canaries supporters group based in Tampere, says: “It’s like a dream you don’t want to wake up from, hoping it will never end.” Eight years since opting to support Norwich for myriad reasons, their club is now the centre of Finnish attention.
“I’m so proud and it’s a huge bonus. When we signed Pukki, it suddenly struck us there was a Finnish player in our team. That in itself was strange. Now Pukki has played tremendously well, it’s amazing.”
Norwich have taken advantage too, by offering free postage to Finland for their merchandise. There is a wait, however. The Canaries had recently run out of the number two; not ideal if you wanted Pukki and his No 22 on the back of your shirt.
Calling someone “talented” is not something Finns do lightly. It is a compliment that is hard-earned. But no one hesitates when using it in reference to Pukki. The ‘Pukki parties’ first coined by Brondby fans are now ubiquitous in Finland: go to a restaurant, have a beer and watch the game. Norwich have been having a Pukki party ever since Teemu arrived.
“Everyone in Finland now knows who Teemu is. You have only a few athletes that everyone loves. I don’t know any team-mate, journalist, or person who would have one bad thing to say about Teemu. Not one,” adds Riihilahti, who jokes Finland usually only excels at sports that require a helmet.
“You have to remember he has played at a high level constantly for over a year, scoring all the goals for Finland and Norwich. He hasn’t just peaked for some games. This is his level now. It’s no fluke.
“Everybody in Finland now knows his story and when you go to kindergarten, and I went with my son today, people don’t want to be Messi or Ronaldo. They want to be Pukki, and this is fantastic for Finnish football.”
If you want to find those that are happiest at how things have developed for Teemu Pukki however, you need to head back to Kotka.
“It’s a fairytale. I’m so happy to watch him playing and enjoying life,” smiles Ikavalko. “He’s still the boy from Kotka. He talks like people from Kotka talk. He hasn’t changed that in a single way.
“I still think football is not like a job for him. It’s just something he loves to do. He was not the guy who would train on his own or go out on the pitch, take 20 balls and shoot into the corners. If he went with a ball when he was 15, he was with us playing. It’s the whole package: friends, football, family. You can already read a lot of stories about players who have nothing without football, but for him I don’t think it’s like that. Maybe that’s why he’s so good — he doesn’t take so much stress from it.”
Gummerus adds: “I think he is now where he belongs, in the Premier League. Maybe there is still a chance, in my opinion, that he could be at a bigger club but does he have to go? That’s another question. He is a good ambassador for Kotka. He never forgets his roots and whenever he comes back, he always chats with all the people. He always has nice words for us.”
Then there is Janne Hypponen. His expression as he looks over KTP’s artificial pitch considering Pukki’s impact on him is faltering, but his words hold firm.
“Of course, I am very proud of him. Not just because of football but also because of what kind of boy he is, and dad he is. I really respect him a lot. He is still like he was here 15 years ago — a very humble guy, and it’s nice to see how important his family is for him. The biggest changes are his physical change but also his mental change. When you are physically stronger it gives you more self-confidence and scoring goals is easier. Man against man it is easier. But also the mental change, you can see he is in good balance thanks to his wife and daughter.
“I really respect Teemu because of the person he is.”
You will struggle to find a single person in either Finland or Norwich who disagrees.
Äänestys
