Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rico Finnäs was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aatu Kujanpää will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around HIFK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rico Finnäs was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HIFK can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eero Karjalainen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Willem Haapiainen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. HJK know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Lassi Lappalainen has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. HJK would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
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.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HIFK can pretend not to have heard.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. HIFK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Rico Finnäs falls out with a teammate over standards
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and HIFK 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. HIFK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at HIFK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Tomi Kurvinen 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antton Nylund 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.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HJK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
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.
“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 Leonel Montano is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at HJK that is a harder question to answer.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee HJK could ask drops and the wages Till Cissokho can ask rise.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. HJK know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.