Rachide Gnanou and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; HJK are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at HJK, and 1 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody at HJK will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustav Engvall is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and HJK have no good answer.
Pyry Mentu, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.18
A mark of 8.18 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
HJK have gone to IF Gnistan with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from SalPa for Liam Rippon was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
HJK have gone to IF Gnistan with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer went to TPS this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Kaan Kairinen wants continental football; whether HJK can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leonel Montano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Position 4, 17 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Nikolai Hakola chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at HJK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutMads Borchers dropped after a run of poor form
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. VPS kept coming because nothing stopped them, and HJK will be asked about the last half hour all week.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.46 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Tòfol Montiel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.46. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It needed Teemu Pukki to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against VPS, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad24 May 2027
6 new faces, and HJK are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
In brief
The dugoutPyry Mentu has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutMads Borchers dropped after a run of poor form
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I watch every HJK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AC Oulu runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at HJK will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nikolai Hakola after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Matej Marković
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
A brace, and Ángel Rodado takes the afternoon — 8.47
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ángel Rodado provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
$2.3M was the most the club would pay and Chesterfield were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
HJK ran out of time with KuPS. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Teemu Pukki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. HJK have paid $910.0K for Juhani Pikkarainen, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
HJK asked and Raków Częstochowa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$69.0K was the most the club would pay and TPS were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Add another name to the list: JIPPO have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mihailo Bogićević. The answer from HJK has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonel Montano is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every HJK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AC Oulu runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
$9.7M was the most the club would pay and HNK Rijeka were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer went to Portuguesa this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The offer went to Degerfors this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $89.0K — a club that wants Samuel Pasanen enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A club from his own country has asked the question, and he has never pretended he did not want to be asked. HJK have a conversation ahead of them that they will not win with money.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pyry Mentu is on it.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and HJK know which stage they are at.
$320.0K settles it between the clubs for José Müller
FC Lahti have accepted the money. What HJK do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $33.4K — a club that wants Jesse Kilo enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Ilves this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The phone has started ringing about Mihailo Bogićević again, and this time the name on the line is JIPPO. HJK are listening politely and promising nothing.
Kaius Simojoki was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nobody at HJK will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at HJK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ville Tikkanen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at HJK can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pyry Mentu is on it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at HJK has been clear about where Mitja Haapanen stands, which is more than many ever get.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at HJK would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matej Marković signs something — a contract at HJK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; HJK are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pyry Mentu is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Till Cissokho is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lucas Lingman has written the date down.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Till Cissokho is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nikolai Alho is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mihailo Bogićević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at HJK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Till Cissokho is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lassi Lappalainen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pyry Mentu is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and HJK have no good answer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at HJK. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Boateng will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around HJK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and HJK know it.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mihailo Bogićević will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around HJK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Teemu Pukki was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mihailo Bogićević is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lucas Lingman has written the date down.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Santeri Haarala signs something — a contract at HJK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The offer from IFK Mariehamn for Mihailo Bogićević was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around HJK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
1 for Pyry Mentu, marked 7.48, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Liam Möller reports back to HJK with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.