Marked for Max Kulmala
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom8 Nov 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Veikko Koskinen has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Market8 Nov 2027
Only the photograph left for Max Kulmala
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Max Kulmala will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Inter Turku the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Stephen Acquah 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Vincent Ulundu commits to Inter Turku for another 4 years.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Inter Turku training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Arias 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.
Boardroom8 Nov 2027
Inter Turku release $1.1M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad8 Nov 2027
International break empties Inter Turku
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Market8 Nov 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market8 Nov 2027
The name of Herman Sjögrell keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Inter Turku say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Oct 2027
Only the photograph left for Max Kulmala
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Max Kulmala will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Inter Turku the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iiro Järvinen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
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 dugout11 Oct 2027
Bismark Ampofo knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bismark Ampofo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market11 Oct 2027
The name of Herman Sjögrell keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Inter Turku say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match11 Sep 2027
Inter Turku make home a hard place to visit
17 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match8 Sep 2027
The small margins put Inter Turku out
Out, 1‑3 to HJK, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market13 Sep 2027
“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 Inter Turku, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match13 Sep 2027
Full time on the season at Inter Turku
Position 1 on 47 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market13 Sep 2027
Only the photograph left for Max Kulmala
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Max Kulmala will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Inter Turku the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad13 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter Turku this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nestori Meltoranta is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad13 Sep 2027
James Arias 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match14 Aug 2027
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match14 Aug 2027
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Inter Turku have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
A defender's goal wins it for Inter Turku — 7.94
1 for Robert Ivanov, marked 7.94, 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.
Market16 Aug 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Inter Turku is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market16 Aug 2027
AC Oulu pay $330.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad16 Aug 2027
James Arias 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.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces16 Aug 2027
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match14 Aug 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Inter Turku. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Aug 2027
The view from the top for Inter Turku
37 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
A brace, and Jasse Tuominen takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jasse Tuominen provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match31 Jul 2027
There were 87 minutes on the clock and KuPS had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Inter Turku did not stop to explain themselves.
Market2 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market2 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and KäPa waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Inter Turku is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match31 Jul 2027
Inter Turku make home a hard place to visit
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
No thanks: James Bogere rejects the move
Inter Turku had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Brondby, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad2 Aug 2027
James Arias 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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Inter Turku training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Janne-Pekka Laine 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Ilari Kangasniemi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
Luka Kuittinen asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Inter Turku than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Max Kulmala
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
Musa Hietakangas has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Inter Turku 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Inter Turku is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Inter Turku have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Eetu Huuhtanen 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Janne-Pekka Laine 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Inter Turku 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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Jussi Niska asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.