Joel Pohjanpalo

Joel Pohjanpalo
Joel Pohjanpalo, 2018
Personnel
birthday	September 13, 1994
place of birth	Helsinki ,  Finland
size	186 cm
position	Storm
Juniors
Years	station
1999-2005	PK-35 Vantaa
2006-2010	HJK Helsinki
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2010-2011	Club 04	26 (33)
2012-2016	HJK Helsinki	50 (16)
2013-2014	→  VfR Aalen  (loan)	22 0(5)
2014-2016	→  Fortuna Düsseldorf  (loan)	55 (13)
2016	→  Fortuna Düsseldorf II  (loan)	1 0(0)
2016–	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	19 0(7)
2020	→  Hamburger SV  (loan)	14 0(9)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2010	Finland U17	3 0(0)
2011	Finland U19	6 0(1)
2012-2015	Finland U21	9 0(2)
2012–	Finland	32 0(7)
1 Only league games are given. Status: end of season 2019/20 2 As of October 15, 2019

Joel Pohjanpalo [ˈjo̞e̞l ˈpo̞hjɑ̝mˌpɑ̝lo̞] (born September 13, 1994 in Helsinki ) is a Finnish football player . He began his career in the men's field at the age of 16 in the reserve team Klubi 04 of HJK Helsinki . In 2013 he went to Germany for the 2nd Bundesliga , where he played for two clubs for three years. He has been under contract with German Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen since the 2016/17 season .

Club career

Beginnings in Finland

Joel Pohjanpalo had run through the youth teams of the now defunct PK-35 Vantaa and HJK Helsinki before playing for the first team from Klubi 04 from Helsinki in the third-class Kakkonen from October 2010 . In 26 missions he scored 33 goals for Klubi 04 and finished the season with the club as first in the table, but failed in relegation on promotion. In 2011 he returned to his youth club and made his debut in the Veikkausliiga on October 26, 2011 in the game against RoPS Rovaniemi . Also at the season opener 2012 on April 15th Pohjanpalo was on the HJK starting line-up against IFK Mariehamn . In this game, he scored three goals within two minutes and 42 seconds for his club's 3-1 victory. With that, the then 17 year old managed the fastest hat trick in the Veikkausliiga. With the HJK he won the Finnish championship in 2012, with Pohjanpalo being used in 28 of the 33 league games. With eleven goals, he finished eighth in the goalscorer ranking. In the 2013 season Pohjanpalo scored against IFK Mariehamn again three goals in a game; HJK won the game 5-0.

Move to Germany

In the 2nd Bundesliga

At the age of 18, Pohjanpalo left Finland in September 2013 and was awarded for one year to the German second division club VfR Aalen . At the same time, the first division club Bayer 04 Leverkusen secured a purchase option linked to a player's contract until 2018 from July 2014. Due to an injury, Pohjanpalo only started team training for the Aalen team in October 2013 and therefore only made short appearances with the Swabians until the end of the first half of the season after substitutions. In the second half of the season he developed into a regular player and scored five goals, making him the second most successful Aalen goalscorer after Robert Lechleiter . In Helsinki, his contract term was extended early in April 2014 to 2018. Bayer Leverkusen did not use its purchase option, but the exclusive extension of the contract meant that it remained in place. Pohjanpalo moved to Aalen's league competitor Fortuna Düsseldorf for the next two seasons in the middle of the year . For Fortuna, the Finn played 58 competitive games in the league and in the DFB Cup and scored 13 goals. In his last season he was able to secure the class with the club with a three point lead over the relegation place.

At Bayer 04 Leverkusen

In March 2016 Bayer Leverkusen finally used its purchase option and tied Pohjanpalo to the club until June 30, 2018, but he had ended the season with Düsseldorf. His Bundesliga debut on August 27, 2016 (1st match day) - he came on in the 78th minute for Charles Aránguiz - he gave in the 1: 2 defeat in the away game against Borussia Mönchengladbach and scored with the goal to make it 1-1 in the 79 minutes his first goal for Bayer Leverkusen. On the following match day - his first home game for Bayer Leverkusen - he was substituted on for Admir Mehmedi in the 72nd minute when the score was 1-0 for Hamburger SV . Within the last 15 minutes of the game until the final whistle, Pohjanpalo scored three goals, making him a flawless hat trick - and thus the 100th in Bundesliga history ; his team won the game 3-1. Pohjanpalo was then only used very irregularly in the 2016/17 season. Of 44 possible competitive games, he completed a total of only 13 and scored six goals in these. In the following season he was even less considered in the games. He was used in just eight competitive games out of a possible 36, scoring two goals.

In preparation for the 2018/19 season , Pohjanpalo was diagnosed with a circulatory disorder in his right ankle bone in mid-July 2018 , which meant that he did not play a competitive game this season. Despite this diagnosis, his contract term was extended to mid-2022 the following month. During the international break in March 2019, Pohjanpalo returned to the club's team training. In the same week he completed a test game in which he was used for 82 minutes. At the beginning of April, the association published a report according to which Pohjanpalo was again suffering from severe pain in the treated area, which was "a not unexpected reaction of the bone" to the exercise. The association said that for Pohjanpalo this would begin another phase of healing from the injury. He could not do any more training sessions or games this season. An exact time of return to the sporting enterprise is not foreseeable. Just a month and a half later, Pohjanpalo returned to individual training.

At the end of his preparations for the 2019/20 season , Pohjanpalo suffered another stress disorder in his right ankle bone in early August, which meant that he had to take a month off. After returning to team training, he has been a regular member of the squad since the end of September. In the Bundesliga game on October 26, 2019, Pohjanpalo was substituted at the end of the game in a 2-2 draw against Werder Bremen , which meant he played a competitive game for Leverkusen after 587 days.

As a loan player from Hamburger SV

On January 24, 2020, Pohjanpalo switched to the 2nd Bundesliga for six months on the basis of a loan, this time to Hamburger SV . The loan should allow him more match practice in order to prepare for a possible participation in the EM 2020 , as well as support the HSV in its efforts for promotion. In the 7 games up to the season interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Pohjanpalo mostly came from the bench under head coach Dieter Hecking behind Lukas Hinterseer and scored 2 goals in 5 appearances (once from the start). With the resumption of play after more than two months, he pushed Hinterseer out of the starting line-up. He has always been in the starting line-up in the last 9 games and scored 7 goals. The HSV, which had always been in the top three of the table from the 2nd to the 33rd match day, missed promotion to 4th place, whereupon Pohjanpalo left the club when his contract ended.

National team

Pohjanpalo in the shirt of Finland's U-21 national team (2015)

On November 14, 2012, Pohjanpalo made his debut for the Finnish senior team in Cyprus : In Finland's 3-0 friendly win, he came on for Teemu Pukki in the 70th minute .

successes

• Finnish champion 2011 and 2012 (with HJK Helsinki)
• Finnish Cup Winner 2011 (with HJK Helsinki)

Web links

Commons : Joel Pohjanpalo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Joel Pohjanpalo in the database of weltfussball.de
• Joel Pohjanpalo in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Joel Pohjanpalo in the soccerway.com database
• Joel Pohjanpalo in the database of National-Football-Teams.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ soccerway.com: HJK Helsinki vs. IFK Mariehamn 3 - 1 match report
2. ↑ Omar Gisler: The Big Book of Football Records: Superlatives, Curiosities, Sensations . Stiebner Verlag, 4th, revised new edition, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7679-1080-5 , p. 25 ( online )
3. ↑ Bayer 04 secures the services of Joel Pohjanpalo ( memento of the original from September 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; bayer04.de, September 2, 2013, accessed September 1, 2016 
4. ↑ Joel Pohjanpalo jatkosopimukseen HJK: n kanssa - vuokrasopimusta Saksaan jatketaan ; hjk.fi, Finnish, April 28, 2014, accessed September 1, 2016
5. ↑ Bayer 04 pulls the option from Joel Pohjanpalo ( memento of the original from March 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; bayer04.de, published and accessed on March 21, 2016 
6. ↑ Match report Borussia Mönchengladbach against Bayer 04 Leverkusen on August 27, 2016 ; kicker.de, accessed on September 10, 2016
7. ^ Match report between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Hamburger SV from September 10, 2016 ; kicker.de, accessed on September 10, 2016
8. ↑ Proof of performance of Joel Pohjanpalo in the 2016/17 season ; transfermarkt.de, accessed on February 21, 2019
9. ↑ Proof of performance of Joel Pohjanpalo in the 2017/18 season ; transfermarkt.de, accessed on February 21, 2019
10. ↑ Circulatory disturbance in the bones - Pohjanpalo falls out for a long time ; bayer04.de, July 17, 2018, accessed on February 21, 2019
11. ↑ Pohjanpalo extended until 2022 ; bayer04.de, August 8, 2018, accessed on February 21, 2019
12. ↑ Retsos wants to play again - Pohjanpalo back in team training ; bayer04.de, March 19, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019
13. ↑ Werkself wins against Ajax - with Panos and Joel ; bayer04.de, March 20, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019
14. ^ Season ended for Pohjanpalo ; bayer04.de, published and accessed on April 9, 2019
15. ↑ Pohjanpalo back on the training ground ; bayer04.de, May 13, 2019, accessed October 27, 2019
16. ↑ Werkself trio has to take a break ; bayer04.de, August 1, 2019, accessed October 27, 2019
17. ↑ Match report Bayer 04 Leverkusen against Werder Bremen on October 26, 2019 ; kicker.de, accessed on October 27, 2019
18. ↑ Pohjanpalo on loan to HSV ; bayer04.de, published and accessed on January 24, 2020
19. ↑ HSV says goodbye to five loan players, hsv.de, July 1, 2020, accessed on July 1, 2020.