Comment | The truth about the World Cup farce: Jukka Jalonen’s Leijonat was shamefully bad

Sweden–Finland 2–1 and. (0–0, 0–0, 1–1, 1–0)

Lions has lagged behind the development of international hockey. It is clear now that the Finnish tournament ended for the second spring in a row in the quarterfinals after a mixed tournament.

Everything happened quickly.

Still in spring 2022 Jukka Jalonen Leijonat was a superior national team, downright dominating.

It was even amazing to watch up close how confidently the Finnish national team roared from one match to another and beat the competitors in their way both at the Beijing Olympics and at the 2022 World Championships in Tampere.

Even before that, in the years 2019–2021, Leijonat was the best national team in the world, even though they narrowly lost to Canada in the final in Latvia 2021.

However, after the 2022 World Cup tournament, which ended in the championship, there was a big lull, the consequences of which are now visible.

Jalonen Leijonat stayed in place while other national teams developed and changed.

I am followed the Lions’ journey closely in the 2022 gold tournaments and after that in the two start-ups that ended in stomach-churning, and noticed that Jalonen’s management team tried to heat up the same porridge too many times with bad success.

In the Lions’ tournament process, everything has been the same year after year. Camp, basics of player selection, roles, style of play, management team.

Jalonen, for example, has not updated his exercise bank in recent years at all. Leijonat trains in value competitions with the same formula from year to year and from training to training.

Up to a certain point, continuity was definitely the strength of the Lions. At the World Cup, Finland was like a club team among national teams, a much more committed and united team than its competitors.

However, too much is too much.

In this tournament, it became very clear how other countries already knew exactly the tricks of the Lions’ way of playing and were able to respond to it.

Even puck lilliputians like Austria and Denmark seemed to enjoy playing against Leijon when nothing surprising came up.

Hindsight is of course easy, but the Lions should have understood to freshen up their operations after spring 2022 or at the very latest after the second home games ended in disappointment.

For example, Jalonen could have updated his coaching team ( Mikko Manner, Ari-Pekka Selin ), whose composition has remained almost the same in the previous five value races. That’s too long.

This year, Leijon had trouble getting the best players even from the European leagues to the World Cup. Many of them had already played in Jalonen’s formula in many tournaments and won championships.

They would have had nothing to lose in a tournament team that follows the same formula of the Lions year after year.

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Even with their numerous late starts, Finland was no longer able to do anything other than hit poorly rhythmic end pucks, which the opponents solved easily.

The way the lions played froze in place. Jalose and his coaching team became too confident, even arrogant. Last spring, Jalonen played stubbornly Mikko from Ranta, Teemu Hartikaia and Sakari from Mann together, even though the chain didn’t work.

This spring, Jalonen was tight-fisted to reporters and insidiously let it be understood between the lines that Leijoni’s player material is too weak.

After the top success, the management team of the Lions did not sufficiently observe what the competitors were doing, but trusted that the Lions’ way of playing would carry over the opponent as it had done many times before.

This spring, for example, Switzerland and the Czech Republic played high-quality hockey against the Lions, which had the disciplined elements of the Lions’ defensive game and the rhythm of the game, but more versatile and daring hair-raising and attacking play.

A few years ago, there was talk of scoring problems in Finnish hockey. Finland got to the goal posts often enough, but was ineffective.

In this spring’s World Cup tournament, Finland did not even want to qualify against the big countries. It rumbled by defending in the games, but losing a goal or two is really a long way to winning matches.

Against Switzerland and the Czech Republic, the Lions’ offensive game was unlucky in most of the games. Against Sweden, the Lions were able to dig a respectable fighting appearance and were close to making a big miracle, but one defensive battle does not change the overall picture.

This spring, Finland played methodical and careful hockey, so that at no point was it allowed to create chaos in the defense of its opponents. Even against Sweden, the Lions were only able to create a few goal chances.

Lions couldn’t get to the goal posts, especially from exploits in the opponent’s area, because the Finnish attackers retreated into a passive trap if the distance to the opponent’s defenders was even a little too much.

In addition, Leijonat lost far too many duels throughout the tournament.

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However, it is now important to learn one lesson from the tragically ended Jalonen era: no one should be allowed to grow to too great a position in Finnish ice hockey.

Partly this was due to the insufficient level of the players, but even the shackled game style did not give good food for fighting games. The lions’ players, for example, rarely even got to try to score from good positions.

The start of the Canada match was a refreshing exception for the Lions. That’s when Finland pressed bravely, got Flow on top, skated more than the opponent and got steals.

Apart from the passionate defensive attitude of the Sweden match, it was the only moment in the whole tournament when the Lions’ game rolled and sputtered and the players were at the core.

Otherwise, Leijonat played with the foot constantly on the brake. Even with their numerous late starts, Finland was no longer able to do anything other than hit poorly rhythmic end pucks, which the opponents solved easily.

The Lions, on the other hand, had great difficulty stopping the opponents’ attacks quickly in their own area.

Lightly constructed mattilas, saarijärvi and riikolas had big problems in duels, as a result of which the game remained spinning for long periods in the defensive end of the Lions.

The lions the player material was admittedly weak and it was close that Jalonen would have scraped everything out of the deficient team in a tight spot in the quarterfinals.

On the other hand, the fact that the Lions did not beat any big country this year and reached the quarterfinals with the help of Great Britain is a blow to the stomach even for this anonymous crew.

Jalonen’s player choices can also be questioned this time. Even in their player selections, the management team of the Lions stuck too much to their old formula and nominated players who had convinced themselves in EHT tournaments and camps, many of whom were from the hope-to-be-to-be-to-be-department.

Leijonat didn’t even blink in the direction of the AHL. Of the six best scorers in the SM League ( Oula Palve, Jerry Turkulainen, Eemeli Finland, Anton Levtchi, Ville Koivunen ) only Finland was eligible for the competition team, but he too stayed on the beach.

And you can also ask if Jalonen would have been worth waiting for, for example, Carolina Sebastian Ahoa to the competition team.

This time, the hollowness of the Lions’ player material was striking, when many other countries had assembled famous teams saturated with NHL players for the Czech World Cup.

Jukka Jalonen did enormous good for Finnish ice hockey. He is definitely the lion trainer of all time.

However, it is now important to learn one lesson from the tragically ended Jalonen era: no one should be allowed to grow to too great a position in Finnish ice hockey.

Even the best of the best coaches need a mentor, an instructor. Jalonen’s coaching team worked together for so long that they could hardly look at their actions objectively from the outside.

Even in the ice hockey association, there was no one who would have critically reviewed the actions of the Lions from above.

Jalonen first worked as his own boss for a long time as the top sports director of the Ice Hockey League. Since the fall, his friend and long-time member of the coaching team Selin, who was appointed as the top sports coaching manager, has basically been his sparring partner. The setting was dense.

Jalonen In two years, the Lions did not win any of their seven meetings with hard puck countries in the World Cup tournament.

This leaves a disgusting stain on Jalonen’s wonderful era.

Jalonen created a great winning culture in Leijon for several years, that is the biggest legacy of his second head coaching season for the Finnish national team.

However, on a practical level, the Lions must renew themselves and find new competitive advantages, because time ran out of the old ones.

With the next head coach Antti Pennasell has a huge task ahead of him.