Kanerva explained his theses in an exceptional way – there are bigger problems behind them

Football Association organized a unique event on Friday, where the head coach Markku Kanerva opened the playing principles of the men’s national team to the media. No head coach has organized a similar event before.

Then why was such an event organized? It clearly tried to answer the questions that the media have asked about the Huuhkajie game. And on the other hand, the opportunity offered Kanerva the opportunity to clarify his own communication and take ownership of Huuhkajie’s game principles.

One of the problems with the new Huahkajie coaching group has been that the coaches’ message has not been completely consistent.

Kanerva’s problem has been that his new assistant coach Jani Honkavaara is a better communicator than the head coach. When Honkavaara has spoken clearly about the principles, an image has been created that he has a better grasp of the team’s principles than the head coach.

Heather emphasized on Friday that the principles are independent of the team’s formation or the nuances of the game plan. It can then be debated whether the principles of Kanerva and Huuhkajie are specifically principles concerning the entire game or just indicative ways of acting in different stages of the game.

Huhkaki have five principles in attack and four in defense. Kanerva also showed examples of game principles from Huuhkajie’s games.

In attack, Huuhkajat tries to advance through the center and tries to take advantage of the back of the opponent’s defense. From the wing, the goal is to get into the back or at least inside, after losing the ball there is an immediate press and counterattacks are also emphasized.

In defense, Huuhkajat prioritizes the center and the continuity of the defense and emphasizes the press. In a low block, the team tries to be active and defend the penalty area effectively. Preventing counterattacks is also one principle.

Kanerva explained each principle with the help of example videos.

“Understand that this [prosessi] takes his time”, Kanerva said, referring to how the principles of the game are reflected in Huuhkajie’s game. It was like a plea for patience.

Football Association’s game analysis manager Henri Lehto told more about how the game principles have been implemented in the autumn Nations League games. Partly quite well, partly a little worse. For example, Finland managed to progress to the penalty area sufficiently, except for the away match in England.

According to Lehto, the principles and their implementation still require work from the team. According to him, it is worth noting how Finland has lagged behind its opponents in the number of runs of the highest intensity in the fall.

The squealers bigger problems in Finnish football lurk behind the statistics.

This year, Lehto made an analysis of men’s international football, which looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the Finnish national team compared to other European teams. According to a recently published analysis, Finland’s absolute areas for development in the offensive end are the weak performance in duels and the low number of challenges observed during the six-year review period and the success in them.

“What do we need to prepare players for? The game is becoming more and more a vertical game, where you have to have the ability to perform high-intensity performances repeatedly. In that direction, we should expose and develop players in the youth phase”, said Lehto about his concern after the led part of the event.

If Huuhkajat is now lagging behind in international comparisons in some aspects of the game, fixing the weaknesses will require a long-term repair work. In training for juniors, the players must be offered more repetitions in scoring and advancing to goal posts, creating goal posts and preventing them.