Malta’s wait for a positive result was lengthened yesterday as Tom Saintfiet’s outfit suffered a crushing 5-0 defeat at the hands of Finland in a friendly match in Belek, Turkey.
The Finns victory materialised mostly in the first half during which they scored their three goals in the space of 14 minutes – between the 13th and 27th minutes. After that, the Finns slowed down considerably and Malta could even move upfield especially in the second half, though the Finns were still good enough to add a further two goals before the end.
Apart from facing a superior Finland side, it must be said that it was a complete flop in the first half as the defence was at sixes and sevens with goalie Hogg avoiding an even worse result with some good saves.
It was coach Tom Saintfiet’s third consecutive defeat since he took over the reins of the side. Yesterday he made some changes from the Luxembourg match starting the match with a 5-3-1-1 formation. Paul Fenech and Zach Muscat were both dropped yesterday.
He started with Attard, Steve Borg, Agius, Jean Borg and Zerafa at the back, while Luke Gambin, Steve Pisani and Rowen Muscat were the three midfielders. Andre Schembri took a role between the midfield and lone striker Jean Paul Farrugia.
As was widely expected, Finland were in command right from the first whistle as they took control of midfield and very rarely did they allow Malta to advance beyond the middle line.
So superior were the Finns that their goalie, Jesse Joronen was only called into action to deal easily with a Joseph Zerafa cross and two other back passes from his team-mates during the opening half.
In the final 10 minutes however, Malta managed to move a bit upfield and even managed to obtain three successive cornerkicks in their favour, but nothing happened from these set-pieces – they were all cleared away comfortably by the tall Finnish defenders and our opponents could continue with their dominance quite easily.
In the second half, Saintfiet made some notable changes and this enabled the side to be more positive and more effective upfront. In fact, the introduction of Mifsud, Briffa and Caruana gave the side more impetus and they now started moving upfield frequently.
The defence played with more confidence and restricted the Finns to just one shot on target – a useless save by Hogg as the Finnish player who shot the ball was ruled offside. But tiredness near the end gave the Finns the opportunity to adde two other goals to their tally to make it a resounding 5-0 win.
It was only once that we went close to scoring through a good effort from Luke Gambin, easily the most hard-working player in the Malta side.
On five minutes, from a cornerkick action, it was Vaisanen who headed over the bar. Five minutes later, goalie Hogg covered himself with glory as he miraculously saved a close range effort from Jensen who was served by Pukki.
On the 13th minute, Finland took a deserved lead as from another cornerkick action, it was Taimi who headed goalwards and Pukki was on hand to head home from close in.
It was 2-0 10 minutes later, when after a low cross from the left, Hogg saved a close range effort from Jensen, but was unable to stop Taimi from scoring from the rebound.
Pukki scored his second goal – and Finland’s third - on the 27th minute, receiving the ball on the edge of the area and hitting the ball left-footed into the right corner of Hogg’s net.
Early in the second half, it was substitute Myles Beerman who avoided a fourth goal when he headed away to a corner from over the line a Jensen shot.
Malta finally managed a shot at the Finnish post on 59 minutes. It was an excellent effort from Luke Gambin which just missed the target.
The Maltese seemed to be controlling the Finns well. However, on the 83rd minute, Hogg was called into action to turn a Toivio shot to corner, and a minute later, from another cross by the same player, Jensen was left unmarked to slot the ball home from close in to make it 4-0.
Three minutes from the end, Finland sealed the issue with a fifth goal as substitute P. Soiri received another good cross to beat the helpless Hogg easily.
Just before the final whistle, Andrei Agius saw his low shot being turned to corner by goalie Arajuuri.
Malta: A. Hogg, J. Borg, A.Agius, J. Zerafa (M. Beerman), S. Borg (M. Johnson), L. Gambin, C. Attard, R. Muscat (T. Caruana), JP Farrugia (M. Mifsud), A. Schembri (A. Effiong), S. Pisani (R. Briffa)