Jari Litmanen in a special interview – talks about family and corona

– I used to play a lot of golf, but I stopped in 2005. I didn’t have time for it anymore, when I was already a family man and football also took its time, Jari Litmanen tells.

The “King” was an expected guest at the invitational competition organized at Rae Golf near Tallinn on Wednesday, which was attended by many of Finland’s leading sports, music and entertainment stars.

Litmanen lives in Tallinn, so he had a short journey to arrive at the tournament. He drove handsomely to the place in a black Porsche, which he called his summer car.

– I only drive this a couple of times a year, he laughed in the parking lot.

Litmanen says he spent the summer with his family ie Ly-with his wife and two sons in Estonia and Finland.

– Summer is so very short in Finland and of course in Estonia too. This is the best time of the year and you have to try to enjoy it, Litmanen describes.

The Litmas’ sons are now 14 and 16 years old and play – surprise surprise – football. The boys have training four times a week and then games. However, Liti does not have more detailed information about their future plans.

– With us, everyone decides for themselves what to do with their life. Everyone understands their own story. Things can be discussed. The most important thing is that everyone finds a path that is pleasant for them, he thinks.

– I’m not really worried about my sons’ future, even though there is a lot of unrest in the world right now. There has always been saber rattling in the world, but of course it is now exceptional that the war is right at the gates of Europe.

Litti herself is not actually involved in the activities of her sons’ team Nõmme Kalju, but sometimes accompanies the coach in training or games when necessary.

Both Finnish and Estonian are spoken at home in Litmas. Ly speaks Estonian with her sons and Litti Finnish, and with each other everyone speaks either Estonian or Finnish depending on the situation. Litti herself says that she is having a good time in Tallinn, but recalls that she has lived in seven different countries since she left the world 30 years ago.

– Tallinn and Helsinki are no longer very different from each other. When I’m in Tallinn, I feel like I’m in Helsinki, and when I’m in Helsinki, I feel like I’m in Tallinn.

Litti gives an example of his knowledge of the Estonian language when he gives an interview to an Estonian TV channel at Rae Golf’s club house. In the interview, he speaks flawless Estonian.

Long Corona

Litmase, 51, has taken a long time to recover from corona. Only now does he feel that he has his strength again, even though he had the corona in March 2020.

– The corona phase stayed with me for 1.5 years and it turned my whole life upside down. For a long time, my life was a struggle for survival and I could only think about how to get through the days. I had no energy and at my worst I took two naps every day.

My sport was that I skied for 20 minutes at a time, Litmanen says.

Litmanen says that he received treatment for long covid from several doctors. He was also in the hospital in Tallinn for almost a week for examination.

– I don’t know where I got infected, because in the spring of 2020, the coronavirus was a new thing and it was mostly talked about as a scourge only in China. Here in Estonia, Corona started spreading from a volleyball match organized in Saaremaa. I may have been lucky in that my general condition was good before the illness. What would have happened to me if I hadn’t been okay?

Corona eventually went through the entire Litmaste family, but only Litti was affected badly.

– But, as I said, now I’m starting to get better. This winter I could already ski for an hour in one go.

In your own hands

Litti says that nowadays her days are shaped according to the needs of other family members. He drives his sons to school and training, and on the side does his own work at a leisurely pace and takes care of his health.

– This is a new beginning for my life, he laughs.

– I have also started TV commentary jobs again and I follow football extensively all over Europe.

Litti says that he also actively follows Finnish football. HHän believes that the Finnish men’s national team has developed considerably in recent years as well.

– Football has continuously progressed in Finland both in terms of coaching and playing. The players’ own motivation has developed. In the A national team, we have had a good situation all along, Litti explains.

He considers the Nations League to be a good thing for Finland, as it offers plenty of games against teams of the same level. According to Lit, Finland has learned a lot from those games.

– The EC competition place was a big boost for Finnish food. This time the qualifiers turned in the other direction for Finland, but we just have to get over it. The success has been completely in Finland’s own hands, both in the EC and World Cup qualifiers.

According to Litmanen, the Nations League has not been to the liking of Europe’s big and traditional football countries, for which the big games are played in the EC and World Cups.

– Let’s take the French team, for example, with players from top clubs like PSG and Juventus. They don’t need to prove anything in the Nations League, and they haven’t always been afraid of their first-place finishers in those games. Doesn’t France need to test something about Mbappe, is he a good player and what is his condition?

A competitive sport

According to Lit, the important thing in Finland is that even here today, football can be made into a profession that can be taken seriously.

– In the 80s, I was laughed at in Finland when I told them that I would become a professional soccer player. Back then, some Finnish fudari could go to play in Sweden, but not really anywhere else. Even my own grandmother didn’t understand me, she asked me back in 1991 that where are you going to study after the army, Jari? he chuckles.

– Today, clubs in Finland have academies and good cooperation with schools. The development has been the same in other sports as well, such as skiing, where microwave ovens and coffee makers used to be awarded as prizes.

And will Finland ever reach the top of the world or even Europe in football?

– You have to remember that football is a very competitive sport in the world. There are ten million registered players in Germany alone.

– Somewhere in South America, soccer is not just a sport but a passion and also an opportunity to get a better standard of living for the family. In Finland, we have education and health care, so the attitude towards sports is therefore different. We don’t have the same compulsion to succeed, Litmanen says.

– We are a small country and we have less human mass, which is also divided into all possible sports. However, this does not mean that we cannot succeed.

A special club

Litmanen says that he particularly follows FC Barcelona’s achievements and success. After all, Barca is a big club that is close to his heart. According to Litmanen, Barcelona has seen a whole new shift since becoming coach Xavi Hernandez.

– Barcelona was in some kind of mental slump when Messi was not in the club. Xavi has now been allowed to study the club and he has started doing things that could be described as Barcelona-like, Litti describes.

– It is telling that the club was looking for something new Dani Alvesbut Xavi thought to call the original Dani Alves and asked him back, even though Alves is already 38 years old.

However, Litti doesn’t watch all of Barcelona’s games, as there are many other national leagues in Europe, such as the British Premier League. It has been dominated by Liverpool and Manchester City in recent years.

– This time the series will be more even, because Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal are also in the thick of it. I consider Manchester City a tough team, and its coach (Pep Guardiola) is very special. He has made that thing work. Without Manchester City, Liverpool would have won many championships in a row.

Among the individual European players, Litti singles out the one who now represents Manchester City Erling Haaland’swho progressed fast in the acceleration lane in Salzburg and is now a ready player in terms of physique, strength and speed.

– Haaland is tough in the team as in the team. He has the ability to get into goal with ease and finish with a high percentage, just like Ronaldo. In the Champions League, he has scored the fastest ten goals. You could see from Haaland at a young age how far he would go.