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Ireland’s Owen Elding made his under-21 debut against Finland. Photograph: Aleksandar Djorovic\/Inpho <\/p>\nEuropean Under-21 Championship qualifying playoff first leg: Finland 1 (Hel\u00e9n 45+8) Ireland 0<\/p>\n
Considering the challenges they faced in a game that never felt like ending, Ireland won\u2019t grumble too much with this playoff defeat in Finland. Not when everything is still on the line going into Tuesday\u2019s second and decisive leg at Turner\u2019s Cross.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, that was Jim Crawford\u2019s stated aim heading to Tampere as the under-21s chase a first European Championship finals. A first-half snowstorm led to a stoppage in play and then a near 50-minute half-time break as ground staff battled to clear the playing surface for the remainder.<\/p>\n
Finland caused Ireland plenty of problems and generated nine scoring chances to Ireland\u2019s two but the Boys in Green dug in after conceding in first-half stoppage time and emerged relatively unscathed thereafter, sensing they still have a big hand to play in Cork.<\/p>\n
When the game kicked off, there was not a flake on the playing surface and Finland confidently zipped the ball around an artificial turf that had been watered before the game. They pinned Ireland deep and were the dominant side.<\/p>\n
Had Alex Murphy not cut out Liam M\u00f6ller\u2019s early cross, Otto Ruoppi would have scored from close range and Crawford\u2019s young side would have been in a world of pain with just three minutes gone, against a side that scored freely in qualifying.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Owen Elding made his under-21 debut against Finland. Photograph: Aleksandar Djorovic\/Inpho <\/p>\n
Finland racked up 34 goals in their 10 group games, compared to Ireland\u2019s 16-goal haul. They were also buoyed as their last victory in this stadium was a 2-1 win against heavyweights Spain \u2013 who beat the Finns to top spot \u2013 back in September.<\/p>\n
Ireland needed to find a way of taking the sting out of Finland\u2019s approach and while they mulled it over, the snow began to fall. Gently at first, but by the 21st minute the Austrian referee had to replace the white ball with a yellow one.<\/p>\n
Nine minutes later, the officials called a temporary halt to proceedings as the lines on the pitch were not visible. Both sets of players headed for the dugouts where the Finns were handed robes to keep them warm, while the Irish \u2013 faces and legs turning a corned beef-pink with the cold \u2013 went without and just toughed it out.<\/p>\n
A lone member of the ground staff used a hand-held push-plough to chisel fresh lines and after a five-minute break, play resumed with Ireland all the better for it. The difficult conditions blunted Finland\u2019s attack although Matias Siltanen\u2019s free-kick bounced awkwardly in the box, goalkeeper Noah Jauny dealt with it after seeing it late.<\/p>\n
Owen Elding \u2013 capped last month for the senior team \u2013 saw a headed goal on his under-21 debut correctly ruled out for offside but it was better from Ireland, even if Finland always carried a threat.<\/p>\n
![\"Ireland's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/NZUPZVLRZM3BQEUSDFSDDTJQ5E.jpg\")
Ireland’s Jamie Mullins against Finland. Photograph: Aleksandar Djorovic\/Inpho <\/p>\n
Siltanen curled a shot just wide from the edge of the box and it served Ireland a warning as Finland caught the Boys in Green with the lead goal seven minutes into first-half stoppage time.<\/p>\n
M\u00f6ller wasn\u2019t closed down quickly enough by Cathal McCarthy and crossed for Onni Helen to loop a header home with the last action of the half.<\/p>\n
The groundsman ditched the big shovel and having been afforded a near 50-minute half-time break instead of the usual 15, he played a blinder on the ride-on tractor, clearing snow with gusto.<\/p>\n
Ireland needed a similarly dialled-in approach mindful they couldn\u2019t afford to slip any further behind in the tie. But with a clear pitch restored, Finland reproduced the quick-fire football that had left Ireland on the back foot in the early stages.<\/p>\n
Goalscorer Hel\u00e8n was denied by Jauny before hitting the post in the next attack. Murphy then deflected Ilari Kangasniemi\u2019s on-target shot for a corner. At this point, the priority for Ireland was not to concede again, rather than scoring but they nearly pulled level.<\/p>\n
Trent Kone-Doherty brought positivity off the bench and Jamie Mullins headed his cross off the bar. The dropping ball fell to Elding who headed back towards goal from close range only for Siltanen and goalkeeper Jaaso Jantunen to hack off the line.<\/p>\n
With six minutes to go, Matteo Egan could not finish from eight yards when slipped through by Mullins. It was a bad miss but still, it was Crawford\u2019s men pushing in those dying stages. After a whirlwind group campaign that ended with four wins in a row, who would bet against one more when it\u2019s needed most, even if they trail?<\/p>\n
FINLAND: Jantunen; Ylitolva, Kangasniemi, Miettinen, Galvez; Mentu, Siltanen; S\u00f6derb\u00e4ck (Mero 86), Tauriainen (Helen 21), Ruoppi; M\u00f6ller (Europaeus 86).<\/p>\n
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Jauny; Gallagher (Egan 61), Grehan, Murphy; McCarthy, Finneran, Devaney (Brown 85), McManus; Elding, Mullins; Lonergan (Kone-Doherty 61).<\/p>\n
Referee: Christian-Petru Ciochirca (Austria)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European Under-21 Championship qualifying playoff first leg: Finland 1 (Hel\u00e9n 45+8) Ireland 0 Considering the challenges they faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,83908,112],"class_list":["post-684210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-republic-of-ireland-under-21s","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}