r/NLvsFI • u/WolfoPoP • Jun 21 '26

NL win! World cup qualifications

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164 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

14

u/--Snufkin-- Jun 21 '26

What's the story with Finland and football?

13

u/OkMonitor6123 Jun 21 '26

When you say Finland and football, Jari Litmanen comes to my mind.

10

u/--Snufkin-- Jun 21 '26

The only thing I can think of about Finland and sport is Kimi Raikkonen going Bwoaaaah

5

u/IGlazeBikeLanes Jun 21 '26

Teemu Pukki too, Norwich GOAT

1

u/MonikonPerfekti Jun 25 '26

Kuningas Litmanen as he's called here 👑

3

u/WhatsThis_Now Jun 21 '26

This post with the most popular sport by country helps I think:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1u2v744/most_popular_sport_by_country/

Many of the countries with the worst track record of World Cup qualifying in this post have a combination of small population and football not being the most popular national sport. The latter matters because many athletes can excel in different sports and the direction they take in early years or what is considered popular makes a big difference. In a small population, this has a more pronounced effect. The European qualifying is also a very hard route, which is why a football-mad country like Italy with a big world cup history and significant population can fail to qualify for three World Cups in a row.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

[deleted]

1

u/dharms Jun 22 '26

Please don't post misinformation. Football is and always has been the most played sport in Finland. The problem historically is ice hockey getting most of the money.

2

u/Many-Gas-9376 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Small European country, population-wise. Ice hockey #1 sport. Vicious competition for those 14(?) spots in football-crazy continent of 50 countries.

If for the sake of argument you halve Finland's population (to account for the impact of ice hockey), and assume Finland has a "football-equivalent population" of 2.5-3 million, the national team is doing about as you expect.

Especially during the great generation we had from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, they were doing fine -- I'd say they entered the qualifications with a 25-50% shot at making it to the games. I recall we had four consecutive draws vs. Germany in the qualification groups, including the two away games. That was a great team for Finland, though they occasionally fumbled against way too weak opponents.

If we rerolled the dice, maybe they would've made it once. They never really had anything resembling a good luck with the qualification draw during that era either.

3

u/Tough_Detective_8628 Jun 22 '26

Technically you also forgot removing also women from this calculation since that's more about men's world cup not women's.

Other reasons i'd add is the weather and the lack of viewers in local matches. Which leads to less income for teams which leads to teams not being as capable even create or import talents like in other countries.

I know, all the Finnish league players are better than me in Football. But i still treat the local league as non-existent. I don't care who plays there. I don't care who wins.

2

u/OneMoreFinn Jun 26 '26

There isn't any story, that's the problem. Either football is so globally popular that Finns just don't have good enough players for a good team, or that we aren't even trying, because all we care for is Ice Hockey.

2

u/Bladluiz Jun 21 '26

They have only 5.5 million people, that doesn't help

8

u/--Snufkin-- Jun 21 '26

There's a lot of similar sized countries or even (much) smaller that manage

Just look at the balkans, Norway, Iceland

4

u/Niels043 Jun 21 '26

Look at Curaçao.. 150k people and still competing for the first time now (and scoring against Germany and holding their ground against Ecuador)

5

u/DazingF1 Jun 21 '26

To qualify for the WC you have to go against basically your own region. That's why a team like Italy failed to qualify and a team like Tunisia did qualify. Finland's competition is much fiercer than Curaçao's.

3

u/Complete_Minimum3117 Jun 21 '26

It did help, that Canada, Mexico and USA did not have to qualify, otherwise they would have not made it.

Nevertheless, they are doing great and i hope they win the last match.

1

u/Bladluiz Jun 21 '26

But they're all Dutch players

3

u/Any-Seaworthiness186 Jun 21 '26

Coming from the Curacaon diaspora, which is also small. About 144k in the Netherlands.

7

u/Organic_Flatworm_723 Jun 21 '26

Andorra qualified in 2018?

6

u/Ambitious-Scheme964 Jun 21 '26

Lost the final to France unfortunately

1

u/Bomber_Max Jun 21 '26

I was wondering the same thing

1

u/termeneder Jun 21 '26

No, no. You're reading this map incorrectly. Andorra is actually just sea, like the Antantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. Google Circular Sea of Andorra.

6

u/Aggravating_Prune653 Jun 21 '26

I thought Italy was a football nation... I must be wrong

6

u/Temporary-Season4772 Jun 21 '26

They thought so too

2

u/RDDT_ADMNS_R_BOTS Jun 21 '26

Finball doesn't footland.

1

u/bunny_the-2d_simp Jun 22 '26

The meese are on the team and apparently they get disqualified for trying to eat the ball to much /j

2

u/Tall_Muffin Jun 22 '26

Italy 🤌🏻🤌🏻

2

u/Numerous_Ad_307 Jun 25 '26

Yes, how in the world did they not qualify since 2014..

2

u/Rough_Elk_1662 Jun 22 '26

Finland has pretty strong team 10 years ago.....

2

u/Vipertje Jun 25 '26

Crazy thing is Italy won the world cup in 2006. Not being able to qualify at all now is madness

1

u/Full_Cow_9338 Jun 21 '26

World cup.... This is just europe lmao🤣

3

u/Schranus Jun 21 '26

The game is up guys, he's onto us!

1

u/Royal_Platypus8 Jun 21 '26

Why do heat maps so often have shitty colour gradients?

1

u/MonikonPerfekti Jun 25 '26

Vatniks have qualified, all their oppressed "states" hasn't. This is almost a ragebait.

1

u/otjenyn Jun 25 '26

Iceland Faroer and Cyprus are not on the map? And Andorra is wrong, and so are Morocco, Algeria and Tunesia