Finns Sacrifice Mixu After Another Defeat

Finland’s Manager has paid the price for his teams run of poor performance, but can he really be blamed for his nation’s lack of ability at a game they’ve never been any good at?

There are times in life when the results of our efforts just aren’t good enough. Oh sure, at school they’ll tell you that if you did your best it’ll all be okay, and of course mother always told you you were special, but out in the real world and one only gets so many chances to make a complete pig’s ear of things before someone steps in and quietly asks you to step out, walk away and find something else to occupy your time.

The Sacrifice Of Mixu

• Finland rank 78th in World
• Four straight losses in Euro 2016
• Manager Mixu sacked

Whilst at the lower end of the scale this means you can be sacked for failing to flip burgers in the right manner, failing to place things in the right way on the right shelves, or for losing one’s cool with a member of the general public who has taken it upon themselves to turn your daily retail employment into a living hell of dealing with stupidity, ignorance and haughty self-importance. At the other end of the scale the situation is no different, but instead of your own mistakes often you pay for other people’s.

Often this is used as an excuse for the massive pay packets that leaders in the corporate or political world seem to require. They are, we are told, taking responsibility and thus need to be rewarded for the inherent risks of doing so. However despite these increased rewards it still comes down to the performance of the organization of a whole, not just yourself, that will govern whether you get to keep your job or not. Their mistakes become your mistakes…..well, in every industry except banking.

Sport has a whole plethora of these positions. Take Formula 1. Those that like to bet on sport in Finland will know only too well that Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas are great drivers, but that their success and failure is not theirs alone to control. The pit crew can make a mess of things, the car can suddenly cease to function as a engine propelled vehicle and some other muppet can crash into you at any moment completely messing up your chances of getting a result of any variety.

Foul Language To Fisticuffs

Di Canio used to be quite hot-blooded as a player, too

If the drivers in Formula 1 seem to be stuck out on the ragged edge of nowhere attempting to be an organic component in a machine that is as likely to be the culprit in any failure, they are as to nothing compared with the managers of teams in other more well-known competitive sports. In F1 there’s only one guy in that car and yet dozens of people help put it on the track, when it comes to team games it’s usually the other way round.

Being the single man held responsible for the performance of entire team is, they’ll tell you, part and parcel of the game, but one only has to look at their reactions to events on the pitch, field, rink or court, to know that they are all too painfully aware of the cause-and-effect nature of their position. Certainly much of the time they portray calm confidence, emotions controlled, busy at work, but that changes in an instant when their team scores, or, conversely, when they are scored against.

The placid man in the suit on the edge of the game, in these situations, suddenly starts screaming, shouting, jumping up and down and gesticulating as if it were about to be made illegal. Indeed the antics of managers and coaches at these times of stress are a firm favorite amongst cameramen and their tv-show producing bosses. The emotion they’ve bottled up to look professional suddenly bursting out of them in ways that make for great telly.

In Football, the world’s most popular (and apparently corrupt) sport, managers must be constantly gambling news coverage will be of the on-pitch events not their reactions to them. Of course sometimes managers bring it upon themselves. Paolo Di Canio getting into fisticuffs with Leon Clarke, Ron Atkinson sitting in the wrong dug out and not noticing and of course Phil Brown’s pitch located team talk all made the headlines for their insanity.

Paatelainen Given The Push

Being held responsible for the performance of a dozen men playing a sport that is often marked out as being just a tad unpredictable, must then be a double edged sword like no other. The team wins and you’re in the roses, the team under performs and you have to take the blame. Oh sure you can try and shift some of it onto the players in the post-match interviews, but you can only do that once or twice, start losing regularly and your days are numbered.

Take Mixu Paatelainen of Finland, now former manager of the national side who lost his job after his team managed just two points from six matches in the Euro 2016 Qualifiers. Fifth in the table two points below even the Faroe Islands (which barely has a population large enough to field a full team) the Finns haven’t completely failed but it’s an awfully close run thing, and if there’s one thing managers of national teams aren’t given it’s too many chances.

After his team lost to Hungary 1-0 the 48 year old former striker said of the game, which saw Finnish fans wave their shoes in disgust at their side’s performance, that some of the blame for the loss had to be laid at the feet of the country’s current lack of talent, and that he wouldn’t be stepping down. After all Finland have never reached a Euro Finals, nor a World Cup finals either, so the results were pretty much as expected. The powers that be however had different ideas.

Mixu was relieved of his contractual obligations forthwith and thus the hunt is on for a replacement, with many a rumor circulating about former Brighton boss Sami Hyypia taking over the roll. With Finnish gambling law allowing internet betting doubtless you Finns can find a site like ComeOn! Sportsbook to take your wager on the veracity of that bit of gossip, however just remember that managers can only do so much with a team ranked 78th in the world.