Noa Vali played his first game of the tournament and the result was always a happy draw for the veskar.
PDO
The points balance of the Young Lions opened in the third match of the under-20 World Cup. Latvia fell clearly with numbers 4–0.
Finland’s goal scorers against Latvia were Jere Lassila (1+3), Jesse Pulkkinen, Kasper Halttunen and Oiva Keskinen.
There were many smiling faces in the booth on Friday early evening.
– It really was. We played a good game today and everyone feels better. There were two difficult games, goalkeeper Noa Vali said.
– There were quite a lot of smiling faces. At least more than after the last game, Ylöjärvi man Konsta Helenius stumbled.
Forced victory
PDO
Vali played his first game in the tournament and a clean sheet. The massive knee pads were in the booth after the game – thanks to the teammates.
– Of course, the guys were a bit beat up, I guess that’s part of it. The opponent didn’t get a lot of chances today. My job was quite easy, I was able to be quite at peace. Jätkät played well, the TPS keeper, who saved 23 times, shared praise with his friends.
– Vali was very good in the goal today. Big kudos there. I myself had a lot of spots today, but I wasn’t able to vaccinate from spots, cage head Helenius said.
– We have to focus on that in the future. It looks good, we are going in a better direction.
Young Lions can no longer remain last in their group.
– Today we had to win, It didn’t matter how it came, Vali reminded.
Finland’s preliminary series ends on New Year’s Eve with a match against Sweden. Niklas Kokko played the first two games in goal, now it was Vali’s turn.
The coaching staff has a tricky place to fund a playing goalkeeper for the match against Sweden.
Is Vali in the goal?
– Don’t know yet. Let’s go one day at a time, we will hear about it for sure on Saturday.
The Sweden game starts on Sunday at 15:30. TV5 will show the match live.