I know we are all currently entralled by Team GB’s quest for gold at the Olympics, but lets bring our attention back to Celtic for a day or two because we have Champions League footy on Wednesday. Yay, competitive football.
This time last year I thought it would be pretty cool to get a perspective of our European games for an opposing fans point of view. With this in mind I did a bit of research and found Forza HJK to be one of the bigger supporter groups of HJK Helsinki. I reached out to www.forzahjk.net and luckily their admin Vellu was kind enough to set me up with a username to ask a few questions of their members. Got to love the world wide web.
1) What does HJK stand for?
Markku: HelsinginJalkapalloklubi = Helsinki Football Club
2) Who is your star player? The one who you think will cause us most trouble?
Markku: I think I’ll say Atik Ismail who scored against Liverpool. That was 30 years ago, though . I might choose the young Joel Pohjanpalo (to whom Liverpool actually made a bid for a contract but who said no!). You can check out his league debut here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibHRquIsXkg
3) How much do you know about Celtic FC? Who do you think our best player is?
Markku: This depends on who you are asking, of course. I’m afraid I personally don’t know too much about the current Celtic FC. Premier League champs, obviously. With a quick glimpse, not too many familiar names in the squad, either. But Celtic is one of those European teams that just about every Finn interested in football does recognise. The best player is obviously HenkeLarsson!
Vellu: GeorgiosSamaras is most likely the most dangerous player for Celtic, as he played very well for Greece in Euro Championships. Though you have many other good strikers.
4) Were Celtic a team you were hoping to avoid in the draw? or did you see us as one of the weaker teams?
Markku: There are several different, even opposite reasons for hoping to avoid or not to avoid some team. You certainly weren’t seen as a weaker team, so in that sense we may have hoped to avoid you.
On the other hand, it’s always nice to have a well-known team in these games (see answer 3), and chances are that we might easily have a full house (which is not that much, though: some 11 000).
mike–2000–: Personally I saw Basel, Dynamo Zagreb and PartizanBelgrad as much stronger teams than Celtic so frankly I was very happy about the draw. Anyway, hope you have a good time here in Helsinki (or in “Stadi” as we call our beautiful home town) and welcome !
Vellu: I’m also very happy getting Celtic to Helsinki, as those others (Partizan and Dinamo Zagreb) would have been too hard for us.
5) Do you think your squad this seasons is as strong as the team that beat Schalke 04 last year?
Markku: We’ve lost quite a few of our top players from last year and have not been that convincing in this year’s league, either. On the other hand, 7-0 on the previous round promises good.
Vellu: HJK is not as good as last year.
6) Prediction time, who do you think will win the games?
Markku: HJK, of course.
mike–2000–: To be honest, I think we will win the games
Vellu: I also believe that we will win.
7) Most important question of all for our travellers, Where is a good place to go for a pint in Helsinki?
Markku: Again, depends on whom you’re asking. My personal favourite is St. Urho’s Pub just behind the National Museum (http://goo.gl/maps/nEqm). But I’m not sure how long you’ll stay in if you start chanting there . Let’s have second opinions.
mike–2000–:Going out for a pint or two is not cheap in Finland and complaining about the prices is a popular Finnish pastime, but compared to (say) London or New York City the prices aren’t that bad.
You may like it outside the city centre area and head to the district of Kallio where bar prices are significantly lower. Popular places include Heinähattu, Roskapankki, Iltakoulu, Bar Molotow and Lepakkomies but there are lots more to choose from, just walk along
Helsinginkatu or Vaasankatu. You can reach Kallio from the center by walking, by tram (lines 1, 3B, 6, 7B or 9) or by metro (get off at Hakaniemi and walk uphill, or Sörnäinen (Sörnäs in Swedish, “Sörkkä” in Helsinki dialect as we use to call it, and head west)).
All bars in Kallio have to close at the latest at 2AM, whereas in city centre there are many that are open until 4AM, this reinforces Kallio as a ‘party starting district’. The Kallio area is generally a bit rougher than the rest of the city and is as close as Helsinki gets to a red light district.
However, it is a lot more tame than most ‘such parts of town’ in Europe. You will be fine there at any hour as long as you look out not to get in between a fight of two drunkards about who the remaining vodka belongs to.
Vellu: We have a co-operation deal with Gringos Locos restaurant very near Sonera Stadium. It serves also good food and has a large terrace. http://www.ravintola.fi/en/gringos_locos_helsinki. And it’s only some 400 meters aways from Football Stadium.
The old Olympic Stadium from 1952 is also nearby.
There you have it bhoys and ghirls. HJK Helsinki fans are fairly confident of winning this tie and see us as an easier draw than Dinamo Zagreb and Partizan Belgrade. I must say I was a little bit surprised by the answers, but I guess the rest of Europe has a low opinion of Scottish football on the whole. So what do you think? Will it be a tough game? I will have my report on HJK Helsinki up tomorrow.
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The very fact that they are well ahead in terms of match sharpness will make it a tough couple fo games for us. If we were to play HJK in 6-8 weeks time, I’d have no doubts at all we would qualify with some ease.
As things stand we will need to pull out all the stops. Hopefully their management team are equally as unimpressed, lacking in knowledge if they see Sammy as the main threat,
Not exactly shaking in their boots are they? But that could work to our advantage.
I remain optimistic besides our poor pre-season… would rather have not seen injuries sustained in the inter game as it was a meaningless match to close to this tie and a few of the players that are likely to play against helsinki were rested against inter.
I’d say were no better positioned in terms of match sharpness than we were against Norwich but we werent to shabby against them albeit still a little shot shy… HH!
It’s actually quite surreal how just about every European fans’ opinion is that Samaras is our biggest threat…when he clearly isn’t! Yes he’s definitely a threat but although he’s had a poor pre season, it’s Gary Hooper they have to watch out for. Especially when he’s already scored for us a good few times In Europe. (am I right in saying he scored against udinese?
As well as Rennes and Braga at park head?) so anyway, is it because of the big stage of world cups and Euro championships with Greece that many on the outside see Samaras as our best and most dangerous player? Maybe so, but they better be wary if their players have the same mindset as their fans! Watch this, Sammy will score a hat trick against them now!
great article – hopefully we will see many more of these on our european journey.
It is sad to see (although no surprise) at how low even smaller european teams like hjk see us. Under MON we would have had no fears about playing hjk, and they most certainly would have feared us. Now quite rightfully we are slightly fearful of them. It really shows how far we have fallen. Although i really believe we have an extremely good team apart from the center of defence, but i am confident we can beat them even with this issue.
Maybe a good thing that they see Sammi as out biggest threat, means their eyes are off Hooper….until he puts 3 passed them!!
even tho big sammy can be and usually is a threat, especially wide on the left, i dont think im alone in saying that hooper is our main threat, the formation and tactic tinkering of pre season is over and lennon has to go with the tried and tested 4-4-2, would love to see wanyama and kayal at centre mid, my ideal team wd b – forster, matthews, mulgrew, rogne, izzy, commons, kayal, wanyama, sammy/ledley, stokes/sammy, hooper, but as long as we win and win well, im nb wt team gets played lol mon the hoops
Are Partizan Belgrade the team that had been knocked out by Shamrock Rovers last year?
http://t.co/BDx6V9bl Its a must watch psml 🙂