I’m wide awake again by 7.30am.
Last week I’d arranged to meet Niko Hasa, the Head Coach of SJK III (average age 17-19) and the guy who runs SJK’s Football High School at Kuortane. To add to the club’s walking wounded, Niko is ill so that meeting is now off the agenda. I text Jani Uotinen, the Regional FA coach instead.
Morning. When is good for you to meet over the next few days?
Morning. Today between 14-16 or tomorrow after 1430.
If we do today, just call me 10 mins before you come?
Perfect. I’ll meet you around two o’clock.
Cool. See you later.
Boom. That worked out nicely.
I get out of bed, get showered, make a cup of tea and eat two cinnamon buns. I then eat two paracetamol. My head is on the verge of white noising through lack of sleep. Once Stevie is up and ready, we head to the stadium.
In the coaches office the staff gather round and discuss the day’s schedule with particular attention paid to numbers and what training load is suitable for each of the players. Risto Toivonen, the strength and conditioning coach has a lot of input on this with Toni and Stevie asking questions and Jaska Ulvila the Head of Performance having his say. Rich is stood in the doorway looming large and has suggestions also.
Once that’s done all the staff go off and do a few bits before reconvening for breakfast on the second floor. A couple of them speak with a player or two before we all sit down. For the record I have some scrambled eggs on toast.
I speak to Jaska about some of his experiences abroad. Prior to coming back for his second stint at SJK he’d been conditioning coach at Tromso in Norway. We talk about his visits to England and then he drops in to the conversation that he’s a Liverpool fan. My eye starts twitching (I’m from a family of Evertonians) but I decide in the interest of international relations to let it slide.
Jaska recently came back from a 3-week visit to Vision FC, our partner club in Ghana. Rich had been there also.
They talk about how it’s important to give the young men that come over a lot of time to settle. Everyone is aware of the obvious cultural differences between life in Ghana and life a few hundred miles below the arctic circle, but it is clear from hearing both guys talk it’s not until you see and experience it for yourself that you can totally appreciate it. They are full of humble admiration.
Jaska describes his trip:
It was eye-opening. In Ghana, I could start training sessions with 28 players and finish the session with 44 players. And that is what it’s all about there. Chaos is normal, and players learn to solve problems in chaos. They are friendly and helpful people. And their joy made me feel happier as well.
When SJK loan a player from Vision this is the reason it’s a long term loan. Terry Yegbe, was here for well over 12 months on loan before the move was made permanent with a fee going to Vision. When he was sold 6 months later to Swedish side Elfsborg for SJK’s club record sale, Vision received a chunk of that transfer fee too.
The point here is that Terry got a full season playing for SJK II (average age 19-20) to settle into European life in Finland’s second tier. Obviously, there’s less pressure in the academy environment. When he got his chance the next year with the first team in pre-season nobody was even sure he was ready even then. But from minute one he just blossomed in games against higher quality opposition. It was ridiculous. We like to think that long bedding in period gave him every chance to shine when the time to step up came. It seems a simple thing, but the pressure of club football sees people make illogical decisions. At SJK, we try and fight against this every day.
We clear away breakfast and I go up to the third floor to continue looking at the u15s regional camp games so I can speak to Jani later on this afternoon about the standards, set up, and so on. I’ve watched some of the games previously but there’s several regional teams and 120+ players to look at. Rich went to watch the camp live a couple of weeks ago and the “c” word came up then too when he messaged me at the time:
How am I supposed to know who is good at this level? It’s like a 5-a-side game in a hall. They play 30 minutes and get changed. It’s just chaos.
Send someone who knows what they’re doing?
That’s what you get paid for.
I get paid?
Luckily the games are being uploaded to YouTube pretty quickly after each one so I can get on it myself. However, within a few of hours, Rich’s tune had changed.
This is actually exciting. Remind me at the start of these camps in future to try to ignore everyone at the start. Otherwise it’s impossible to focus on who’s good and who isn’t. Throughout the day I got to know basically all the players and it was much easier.
By the end of the process we have both written notes separately about all the games. There is a lot of crossover in the names we have both picked out. This is reassuring if they turn out to be good. Alternatively, less-reassuring if they never end up making it. Watch this space…
Rich pulls out a big piece of A3 paper on the table and notes down names (don’t worry record keepers, I also made digital copies – it’s 2024 after all). By the end there are nearly 30 players covering all positions that we have picked out as ones we would like to bring to the Kuortane Football High School. By the time we are done it’s time for lunch.
Jani calls me at 13:40. Soon he is picking me up from the stadium and driving us somewhere quieter to talk where we won’t get interrupted. That place is the ABC in Seinajoki. ABCs are like a Finnish version of our motorway service stations…just nicer…and not necessarily on motorways. The place has a Finnish style canteen/cafeteria service section, a separate section where you can buy sweets, small groceries etc, a whole bunch of long comfortable benches and tables and clean toilets. The vibe seems like a community meeting place almost. I’m pretty sure you could come here with your own packed lunch, sit and eat, spend nothing and no-one would bother you.
I choose a fizzy lemon and lime drink and Jani asks me if I like gin. It’s been my favourite spirit for a long time I say. You have to have a Lonkero then he tells me. Lonkero (or Long Drink) is the national tipple here in Finland. It’s a ready-mixed cocktail of gin and lime/lemon soda. I make a mental note. I need to take sauna before I leave to go home too.
Jani is a man who is easy to converse with. A couple of weeks ago, while still at home, I got his number and called him to “quickly” introduce myself before I made this trip. We were on the phone for nearly an hour.
Now we are face to face for the first time I am here to talk about the youth football set up in Finland and pick Jani’s brain, but it is only part of our conversation. We talk about youth football, yes, but many other things too. Jani played 50-odd games for Greenock Morton in the early noughties and talked about his experiences in Scotland wistfully. We talk about Finnish and British culture and his enthusiasm for the latter shines through. You’d like to come back and work in the UK then? I’d be there like a shot he says eyes lighting up. Jani finds things a bit too quiet and relaxed in Finland and seems to yearn for a bit more excitement. I laugh as I am absolutely loving the pace of life here so far and miss none of the hustle and bustle of city life back home.
Jani who used to coach for SJK’s academy several years back says he likes the style of football Stevie brought to the academy last year. Stevie along with Ape Aromaa took both SJK II and SJK III last season and they had an absolute blast.
SJK II had the best ever season for an academy in Finland, scored the second most amount of goals and got beat in the last minute of a play-off game for promotion to tier 1.
SJK III were put into men’s football for the first time in tier 5. They finished top of the league, won promotion, 19 out of 22 games and scored 115 goals.
Jani says it would be interesting to meet Stevie some time and chat. Let’s go now, then I say, he’s at the stadium. A few minutes later, we’re in the car on our way there.
Differentgame Analytics 