FC Inter Turku - European Giant


FC Inter Turku
Champions League Qualifying - 2025

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3rd Round - FC Inter Turku 6 - 0 Slovan Bratislava

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A couple of comfortable 3-0 victories over the Slovakian champions sees us cruise through the 3rd round and into the playoff round, where we will play the Swedish champs Djurgarden.

Playoff Round - FC Inter Turku 5 - 0 Djurgarden

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The first leg in Sweden saw a great performance from New Zealander Paul Robertson as his hatrick gave us a 3-0 win and ledt Djurgarden little chance of causing an upset and knocking us out. We never really got out of 2nd gear in the home leg, but did win 2-0 to send us through 5-0 on aggregate. Our reward was being a 2nd seed in the group stage draw for the first time.

Group:

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This group is actually a bit tougher than it looks. Barcelona are the current La Liga champions, having won the title 8 out of the 12 seasons so far. PSV are the current runners up of the Eredvisie, whilst Sochaux are actually the current French champions and are the 4th seeds in the group. We could still steal 2nd but all the games in the group should be pretty competitive and tight.

IFK Mariehamn in Europe:

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For a 2nd time in 3 seasons we have a team qualify for the Europa League group stages. They pulled off 2 impressive victories in the playoff round over Belgian side Genk, and have been drawn in a group where I don't expect they'll get through but should pick up some points.

Next update will go over the last 3 months of the domestic season...

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FC Inter Turku
August, September and October 2025

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Fixtures:

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An 100% record over the 15 domestic games, only conceding 2 goals over the period with 13 clean sheets. We won the Finnish Cup for a 7th year running and an 8th time overall, beating Haka 2-0 in the final.

Player Stats:

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An unbelievably good season from winger Vitor Cesar, with 34 goals and 23 assists in 28 starts from the right wing! Unfortunately, he has broke his foot and only played 1 full Champions League group game. 5 players managed to score 20+ goals this season, showing we have no shortage of fire power...

League Table:

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So close to the 100% season, with just 1 draw in 33 games. We didn't score as many goals as last season, but did only concede 10 goals which is the lowest in the league's history and we also set a new points record for the league with 97 points!

Other News:

1) We bring in a couple of free transfers to be squad players on cheap wages to replace Holmgren and Jaaskelainen (who are out of contract at the end of the year). We also let a young Finnish midfielder leave to go play in England with Derby, which should serve his development better than playing in our under 19's.

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Next update will be a Champions League group, whilst I'll also give a brief review of how IFK got on in the Europa League group stages...

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Just a quick note of interest. Of the current Finland squad selected for the November friendlies, 9 of the 23 in the squad currently play for us whilst another 10 have played for us in the past. Also, 15 of the players came through our own youth academy!

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I'm thinking it's about time Mixu Paatelainen let you take over the National Team! :D. Keep up the amazing work mate.
 

FC Inter Turku
Champions League Group Stage - 2025

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PSV 0 - 3 FC Inter Turku

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A comfortable 3-0 victory away in the Netherlands to start off our campaign. They went down to 10 men early on when we were just 1-0 up, which left it very easy for us to pick them off and pull off an easy victory.

FC Inter Turku 3 - 0 FC Sochaux-Montbe

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Another 3-0 victory, this time over the French champions Sochaux with the goals coming from the South Americans Rocco and Medel, with Finnishman Viljanen rounding off the scoring.

FC Barcelona 0 - 1 FC Inter Turku

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Yes, you are reading it right. We won at the Nou Camp! New Zealand international Paul Robertson, filling in for Cesar on the right, scored the only goal of the game just before half time. I thought we may be clinging on towards the end, but despite playing the last 10 minutes with 10 men after an injury, they still couldn't manage to create a CCC all game.

FC Inter Turku 1 - 1 FC Barcelona

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Are we finally learning how to compete against the top sides? Robertson's second in 2 games against Barca snatched us a draw after they scored the opener in the 75th minute. These results are giving me a bit of hope for improved performances in the knockout rounds.

FC Inter Turku 4 - 1 PSV

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Another comfortable victory over the Dutch side secures us top spot in the group with a game to go! Nice to see young Finnish winger Tuomaala getting on the scoresheet off the bench!

FC Sochaux-Montbe 0 - 0 FC Inter Turku

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A bore draw to finish the group. Left back Gardener did get sent off and will miss the 1st leg of the Champions League 1st knockout round.

Group Final Standings:

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We win a pretty difficult group, think this is the first time we have ever topped the group! Our reward is a very winnable knockout round tie against Celtic...

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IFK Mariehamn in Europa League:

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A brilliant performance from IFK sees another Finnish team qualify for the knockout rounds of a European competition for the first time! This can only help with the league's coefficient rankings!

Next update will be an end of season review...


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FC Inter Turku
End of Season Review - 2025
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Finnish Premier League - Winners

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Finnish Cup and League Cup - Winners

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Champions League - 1st Knockout Round (In progress)

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Fans Player of the Year - Jorma Viljanen

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Best 11:

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Overall Best 11:

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Next up will be a 2025 review for the Finnish national team, can they restore some respect to their World Cup qualifying campaign? ​
 

Finland
2025

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Fixtures:

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A little better than last year, with the highlight being a brilliant 1-0 win away to Italy.

End of year world ranking - 55th

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World Cup Qualifying Group:

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Player of the Year - Simon Scrabb

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Under 21 Player of the Year - Pekka Hovi

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Best 11:

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Overall Best 11:

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Next update will be of our Champions League 1st knockout round tie vs Celtic...

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FC Inter Turku
Champions League 1st Knockout Round - 2026

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Celtic 1 - 0 FC Inter Turku

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We lose the first leg against the big boys of Scottish football 1-0, in a game which was played mostly in the middle of the park with not many chances created. The lack of an away goal is a real worry for the 2nd leg...

FC Inter Turku 4 - 1 Celtic

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When Jardine scored in the 17th minute and got Celtic their all important away goal, I didn't hold much hope of progressing through the round. However, in the 52nd minute I decided to make a triple change and change to overload and eventually it reaped it's rewards. Substitute Scheweleff pulled one back in the 60th minute before Celtic went down to 10 men in the 72nd minute. This was all the incentive we needed as 3 quick goals from Robertson, Sterling and Scheweleff sees us through 4-2 on aggregate to play Dortmund in the Champions League quarter final. This is now our best ever European run...

Next update will be of our Champions League quarter final against Dortmund...


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FC Inter Turku
Champions League Quarter Final - 2026

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FC Inter Turku 1 - 5 Borussia Dortmund

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A record attendance of 19,671 saw us take an absolute battering at the hands of Dortmund! An injury/suspension crisis in centre midfield was the last thing we needed against opponents of the quality of Dortmund, but that's exactly what we had and they made us pay for it!

Borussia Dortmund 5 - 1 FC Inter Turku

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Another battering from Dortmund completes a humiliating exit from the Champions League, completely outclassed by the German side. We were level at 1-1 for quite a while but they then managed to bag 4 goals inside of 8 minutes to make the game look far more one sided than it was. In fact, you could probably say the same about both legs, we deserved to get beat but not by the margins we got beat.

Next up will be a season 2026 preview...
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FC Inter Turku
2026 - Season Preview

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Transfers:

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The main news here is on the outgoings. I let first team backup players Mofokeng and Marcelo go for terrible fees, but for some reason once a player passes the age of 22 or 23 we never recieve decent offers anymore. Luckily, we did manage to sell a half decent youth player for £3,300,000 which makes up for it a little bit.

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The one player we did bring in on a free was English midfielder Mark Jackson, and he will just play a backup role. Overall, we probably saved £45,000 a week on wages and made a profit of £3,700,000 on transfer fees.

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Finnish League Cup:

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nother League Cup title in the bag, scoring 27 goals and conceding 3 goals in 9 games!

Squad:

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Brought up a new young goalkeeper from the youth squad to be backup keeper as he is the future Finnish goalkeeper. Ari Tuomaala is also pushing to become backup right winger, as I continue to try and promote youth from within the club.

Next update will go over the first couple of months of the domestic season...

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FC Inter Turku
April and May 2026
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Fixtures:

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A good start to the season as expected, however we did drop points annoyingly away to Ilves.

Player Stats:

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League Table:

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Comfortably clear at the top already, but the main news here is that HJK (who have won the most Finnish league titles) are second bottom and looking in a relegation battle.

Other News:

1) We have 6 players selected for the World Cup. Centre back Drew Sterling and Warren Barnes have made the USA's World Cup squad, Jodey Gardner and Danny Norris are in the England squad, Rodrigo Medel is in the Chile squad and 22 year old centre back Rocco is in the Argentina squad. I was hoping to get Rocco and Norris to convert to the Finnish national team a few years down the line but it seems unlikely now, although still possible if they don't appear in any games. Also, I decided not to cancel any of the 6 games whilst the WC was on to avoid fixture congestion, so hopefully we can get on without these 6 players and not get many injuries.

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Next update will be a June and July review...


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FC Inter Turku
June and July 2026

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Fixtures:

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We've played 10 games over the 2 months and won all 10, however there were a few too many 1-0 wins for my liking! XD

Player Stats:

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Last season's star play Cesar has now qualified to play for Finland, however after breaking his leg last year, the fact he is 29 and the emergence of Finnish winger Tuomaala, I am finding it hard to give him as much game time as I would like. Strandvall and Viljanen are tied for top scorer at the moment with 22 goals a piece, but Strandvall has done it in less games and is transitioning into becoming first choice striker now as he is just 21 whereas Viljanen is 28.

League Table:

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We moved past 150 league games unbeaten over the 2 month period, we haven't been scoring many goals this season though.

Other News:

1) The Finnish League moved up to 16th in the competition rankings, ahead of the likes of the SPL and the German, French and Italian second divisions. We're up to 14th in the club coefficients and the league is up to 10th in the nation coefficient, meaning we have our second Champions League place back and that includes a group stage spot, meaning we won't need to play any more qualifiers after this season.

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2) Our most successful players at the World Cup were Americans Warren Barnes and Drew Sterling, who went all the way to the World Cup final, where they unfortunately lost to Italy. Still, nice to have 2 World Cup runners up in the squad!

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Next update will be a Champions League qualifying update, can another Finnish club join us in Europe for a second season running...?

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FC Inter Turku
Strandvall is a Galactico!

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Arguably our best ever player produced through our academy has left the club for a huge £28,00,000 to Real Madrid! This was a hard deal to push ahead with, because he is only 21 and still has room to go and could have been an amazing striker for us, but the £28,000,000 on offer was just far too much to turn down and ultimately it is nice to see us produce a player capable of playing for arguably the biggest club in the world! Now my big decision is whether to just bring a new first choice striker into the club or whether to just use Viljanen as first choice and bring in a cheap backup player...

Next update will be a Champions League qualifying update...


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I felt exactly the same selling Viktor Gardarsson to PSG on my KR save. It took me a while to decide weather to go through with it lol.
 

FC Inter Turku
Champions League Qualification - 2026

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2nd Round - FC Inter Turku 22 - 0 Streymur

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3rd Round - FC Inter Turku 7 - 2 Levski

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Playoff Round - FC Inter Turku 6 - 0 Videoton

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Group B:

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So after qualifying routinely for the group stage, we have been rewarded with a fairly kind group. We should take 6 points off of Plzen, whilst Anderlecht have some decent youngsters and should give us a battle for 2nd place. However, we've qualified from harder groups and should be able to make it through this one if we perform well.

IFK in Europa League:

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For a 2nd year in a row we are joined in Europe by fellow Finnish team IFK Mariehamn. They made it all the way to the 1st knockout round last year, and with us making the Champions League 1/4 finals it really helped our European coefficient ranking. Hoping they can give a repeat performance this year but I don't hold too much hope...

Transfer News:

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Replacing Strandvall was a really hard task, given that our highest player wage in the squad is 21k a week and I didn't really want to go too far over that. So, I decided to go and sign a young Nigerian striker who isn't half as good as Strandvall currently, but when he reaches his 4 star potential he will be a top class striker! We paid £5,500,000 to Stade Rennais for his services, which is only a drop in the ocean compared to the £28,000,000 we received for Strandvall.

Next update will be a review of the last few months of the season...

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Loving it mate, must be very satisfying developing a player to play for Madrid! Looking forward to what you can do with the Nigerian kid. :)
 
AndySams10 said:
Loving it mate, must be very satisfying developing a player to play for Madrid! Looking forward to what you can do with the Nigerian kid. :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, he seems to have started the season as their first choice striker as well! Was hard to find a replacement though, but the Nigerian striker does have some potential although I'm not sure whether he is someone to be excited about. Time will tell I suppose...
 

FC Inter Turku
August, September and October 2026

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Fixtures:

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Won all games apart from one in the final 3 months, including a Finnish Cup final victory over Europa League side IFK Mariehamn.

Player Stats:

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The two highest goalscorers in Viljanen and Scheweleff are both Finnish, whilst the two highest assist makers are Arza and Tuomaala are both Finnish also, proving the work we are doing for the national team is doing well.

League Table:

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2 points down from last season, but another unbeaten season in the book, stretching our unbeaten run to 164 league games!

Other News:

1) We get one decent player in the youth intake, a 3 and a half star potential attacking midfielder. He might get an early promotion to the first team squad, as I'm considering switching from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1 next year and he could easily be our backup attacking midfielder so far.

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2) Young goalkeeper Paavolainen is asking me for a new contract, however when I try to offer him one he is not interested in talking about one???

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Next update will be a review of the Champions League group stages...

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