Sweden has the 1994 World Cup, Denmark has won the European Championships, Norway has beaten Brazil in a World Cup match and Iceland charmed a whole football world in the summer of 2016. What Finland has to boast is a cross away from Spain in the qualification for the 2014 World Cup.

To follow Finland's footballers has been the opposite of a dance on roses. It has been a hope that has been awakened at the beginning of each qualifier and all too often extinguished already after a couple of matches.

You have had players like Jari Litmanen, Sami Hyypiä and Jussi Jääskeläinen, but still it has never gone the way.

All Swedish acquaintances have played significant roles

Hasse Backe led Finland as late as 2016 without winning a single match and since then several of the former stars have finished in the national team.

In the ongoing qualification, instead all Swedish acquaintances such as Joona Toivio, Tim Sparv and Albin Granlund have played significant roles and ironically, the success is now heron.

Who is the man behind it all? His name is Markku Kanerva and it is not wrong to describe him as a Finnish Lars Lagerbäck.

He has only one season behind him as head coach of a club team, but the more experience from the union. In 2009 he led the U21 national team to the European Championships in Sweden and after that he became assistant coach of the A national team. Twice he had to jump in as a temporary solution, before taking over in 2016 as the league captain after Backe.

Backed from the promise to run naked

As so often when defeat-tipped teams surprise, it is the collective that is highlighted. You compensate for a lack of stars by working hard for each other and making the best of the material you have. It is not difficult to draw the parallel to Jukka Jalonen and the Finnish lions who this spring took a sensational World Cup gold in ice hockey.

National team captain Tim Sparv was in the U21 team that made it to the European Championships, but since then he has had a number of times when it has not gone the way.

Yesterday he admittedly backed away from the promise to run naked in the square if the team gets to the championship, but that it will be the biggest thing that has Finnish men's football there is no doubt.