Football|HJK’s new assistant coach Mikael Forssell has coached the club’s juniors since his playing career.
| Updated
Former top striker Mikael Forssell has been appointed assistant coach of HJK, which plays in the Veikkausliiga. Forssell joins the coaching team on a contract for the rest of the season, club announced on Thursday.
Forssell will be participating in the team’s training for the first time on Monday. HJK’s next match is scheduled before that on Friday, when SJK visits Helsinki.
Forssell piloted HJK’s B-juniors to the Finnish championship in the second season. According to the club’s press release, Forssell knows well both the team’s personnel and the younger players he has coached.
“It feels great to be back ‘home’! I am grateful to ‘Toke’ (head coach Toni Korkeakunnas) for the trust, Forssell thanks in the press release.
MTV news on Wednesday that Forssell is joining the Club’s coaching staff.
According to MTV’s news, the second co-pilot of Korkeakunnas is a Spaniard Oscar García Rodríguez. The one who was recently ousted from the position of formal head coach Ossi Virran fate is still open.
HJK is currently only in fifth place in the Veikkausliiga.
Finland Forssell, 43, the third best scorer in the history of the national football team, won two Finnish championships in his playing career in HJK’s shirt.
He was also part of the legendary team from Helsinki that made it to the Champions League in the 1998 season.
At that time, only 17-year-old Forssell got on the field in two group stage matches against PSV and Kaiserslautern.
He did his greatest feats in England. At the age of 17, Forssell joined the Chelsea organization in 1998, but never made a breakthrough in the shirt of the London club.
The best season of his career was played by Forssell in the shirt of Birmingham City in the 2003–04 season, when he scored 17 goals and finished fifth in the Premier League goal exchange.
After his playing career, he has coached A and B juniors in HJK, among others. This year he has taken a break from coaching.
Correction 6/6/2024 at 7:12 p.m.: Deleted part of the story, according to which MTV reported that Forssell might be replaced by Ossi Virra.
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