Marked for Andre Raymond
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
The 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Yohan Cassubie was at the centre of it, HIFK were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.30, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market10 Aug 2026
Only the photograph left for Joel Lehtonen
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joel Lehtonen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Lahti the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Aug 2026
FC Lahti pay Ilves $660.0K for a proper upgrade
Ilves did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $660.0K for Andre Raymond, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Joel Lehtonen has agreed terms with KuPS for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Aatu Hakala 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
FC Lahti get the job done against HIFK
A 4‑3 win over HIFK, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The town asked, and FC Lahti paid $660.0K
Andre Raymond was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $660.0K. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The offer went to FF Jaro 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Ilves
Roope Riski and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
Andre Raymond has left for FC Lahti in a $660.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: HIFK have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yiandro Raap. The answer from Ilves has not changed — yet.
Market10 Aug 2026
Amos Lam steps up from the Ilves academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Amos Lam has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aleksi Karjalainen has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Match8 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Ilves against KuPS
0‑1 to KuPS, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$660.0K on the table at Ilves. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yohan Cassubie and FC Lahti agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Aatu Hakala in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Lahti this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at FC Lahti training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Armend Kabashi 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and FC Lahti know which stage they are at.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Yohan Cassubie’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Leo Östman is in the works
FC Lahti have made the call to IF Elfsborg. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Osku Maukonen
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against HIFK, and it could have been more.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.15, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A debut Goudouss Bamba will not forget — 7.38
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.38 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
301 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Careers like that are not built on purpose any more, and Ilves know exactly what they have.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Roope Riski and Ilves agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Ilves
Roope Riski 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.