FINNISH FOOTBALL TEAM(SUOMI-FINLAND)

	THE FINNISH NATIONAL TEAMS
	Every Finnish football supporter's dream is to see Finland play the likes of England, Germany, Italy, Brazil and other traditional football countries in a major final tournament. So far this has never happened as Finland has continuously failed to qualify to European and World Cup finals. However, the dream of qualification is certainly coming closer. The success of traditionally smaller footballing countries in the World Cup finals in Japan/Korea 2002 brought hope that soon it could be Finland's turn to be there among the top countries. Our own national team has managed to get some excellent results over the last few years, and today Finland is able to match any country. Even though, the ultimate success of qualification is yet to come true… Things were looking pretty good for Finland towards the end of 2001 and start of 2002. Thrashing Belgium 4-1 and Greece 5-1 in Helsinki at the back end of 2001, and when Finland demolished Portugal 4-1 in Porto in March. Euro 2004 qualifying couldn't come soon enough, things were looking REALLY good. So how come we're all sitting here just three games into our qualifying campaign, already resigned to another failed qualifying campaign? The losses at home to Wales and away to Yugoslavia have takes us quite far from reaching the next major tournament. It's going to happen one of these days, but the annoying part is... this team is already good enough. The U21 national team, however, has started its qualifying campaign well and have realistic chances of qualification. The youngsters´ success has delighted the supporters and gives hope that the national team will soon follow. On these pages we will follow games of the Finnish full national team and the U21 national team. Here you can find fixtures, results and current qualifying group tables. We have also dedicated pages to the FIFA U17 World Championship tournament, which will be staged in Finland 13.8.-30.8.2003. The Finnish Football Association provides further information on the women's national team as well as junior national teams (in Finnish).