Teemu Pukki: Career in the national team over

Teemu Pukki says goodbye to Huuhkaji. Jussi Eskola

Spokesman for the Huhkaki Timo Walden Palloliitto started the occasion by welcoming the media representatives. Then Teemu Pukki himself said that his national team career will end with November’s Malta and Andorra games.

– Hello everyone, it has been a great honor to wear the Suomi shirt. Now the moment has come that this is the last camp for me, Pukki told the national team’s press conference on Wednesday.

Finland will meet Malta at the Olympic Stadium on Friday 14 November. The meeting with Andorra is three days later in Tampere.

– I hope that a lot of people will come to the matches. It would be nice to finish in front of large crowds of supporters, Pukki suggested.

The striker, who returned to Finland for this season, said that his career will continue next season in HJK’s shirt.

The 35-year-old striker has been left with quite a bit of responsibility during Frisia, and naturally now that the World Cup qualifiers are over, the team should be rejuvenated anyway.

Pukki leaves the national team as one of the best Finnish players of all time. He has scored a total of 42 goals in 131 A national matches.

He will remain in the number of matches Jari Litmanen (137) to second place, but he has led the goal statistics since October 2021.

Right now, it looks like Puki won’t have to worry about losing his record for a long time.

Scottish head coach of Huhkajis Stuart Baxter chose the young Kotkala striker to debut in the national team in February 2009. After that, Pukki had time to put on the Suomi shirt so Mixu Paatelainen, Hans Backen, Markku Kanervan as most recently in the Frisian national teams.