Jussi Jääskeläinen

Jussi Jääskeläinen
Jussi Jääskeläinen (2011)
Personnel
Surname	Jussi Albert Jääskeläinen
birthday	April 19, 1975
place of birth	Mikkeli ,  Finland
size	191 cm
position	goalkeeper
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1992-1995	MP Mikkeli	64 (0)
1996-1997	Vaasan PS	54 (0)
1997-2012	Bolton Wanderers	474 (0)
2012-2015	West Ham United	57 (0)
2015-2017	Wigan Athletic	44 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
	Finland U18	7 (0)
	Finland U-21	14 (0)
1998-2010	Finland	56 (0)
1 Only league games are given. As of August 28, 2017

Jussi Albert Jääskeläinen (born April 19, 1975 in Mikkeli ) is a Finnish football goalkeeper and 56-time national player in his home country. He was best known as the long-time goalkeeper of the English club Bolton Wanderers , for whom he was under contract from November 1997 to 2012 and was between the posts in over 600 competitive games. In the Finnish national team he was initially often only a substitute behind Antti Niemi , before he rose to "number 1" in 2005.

Professional career

In the club

Finnish starting stations (1992–1997)

Jääskelainen's first professional club was MP Mikkeli, based in his native town . There - in the south-east of Finland - he had worked as an electrician before starting his professional career. After his debut in 1992 he was in the two seasons 1994 and 1995 regular goalkeeper with the "Blue" and secured them each just about relegation in the Veikkausliiga , the top Finnish league. For the 1996 season he moved to league rivals Vaasan PS and while his old club had to go to the second-rate Ykkönen as bottom of the table, he emerged as the winner of the relegation round with "VPS". The fact that the club from the western Finnish port city won the runner-up the following year was largely thanks to its young goalkeeper, who conceded only 20 goals in 27 league games - only two more than the new champions HJK Helsinki .

Bolton Wanderers (1997-2012)

In November 1997, Jääskeläinen hired for a transfer fee of around 100,000 pounds at the English first division club Bolton Wanderers . There he was initially only on the bench, but after relegation to the second-class First Division and the cruciate ligament rupture of goalkeeper Keith Branagan , he was suddenly in the starting lineup of the "Trotters" in the 1998/99 season. Light and shadow changed in Jääskelainen's early days in English football, whereby a series of nine competitive games with six games without conceding a goal later stood in the way of nervousness and form weaknesses at the end of the season - which even prompted coach Colin Todd to use Steve Banks as another goalkeeper as "security" to commit. The following year was therefore already trend-setting in terms of sport. Branagan initially regained his regular place between the posts, but then broke his leg in October 1999, making Jääskelainen the focus again. From then on, he used his second chance and the previously somewhat insecure-looking newcomer developed into a quick-reacting goalkeeper with new strengths in controlling the penalty area, handling the ball and in "one-on-one" situations. The first notable success was after only one defeat in the last 13 league games, participation in the play-off games for promotion. Here he missed the return to the first division in the semifinals against Ipswich Town , but after the subsequent 2000/01 season the Bolton Wanderers were back in the Premier League. Jääskelainen had completed 27 league games before he had to pause in the decisive games until the end of the season after a serious injury in January 2001.

In his first Premier League season 2001/02 Jääskelainen proved himself in the relegation battle there and showed himself increasingly assertive and physically "present" in his own penalty area. He finally catapulted himself into the top ranks of goalkeepers in English top division football in the 2002/03 season, in which, as in the following year, he did not miss a single league game. The achievements with the most media attention were those in the home games against Aston Villa and Chelsea FC , but especially in the away draw against Everton FC , which involved him in a kind of private duel with Wayne Rooney . An expression of the increasing status in the team and the increased self-confidence was his newfound ability to direct the people in front of him more loudly than before. In the 2004/05 season he was now the player with the longest club membership in the squad and especially at the beginning of 2005, with six "white vests" in eight Premier League games, he was a guarantee that the eighth place from the previous year was improved again with sixth place and the club even qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time . There he moved up into the round of the last 32 teams, but lost here with his men against Olympique Marseille . Another expression of consistency was Jääskelainen’s third league placement in the top eight in a row with 14 clean sheets in the 2005/06 season and the second qualification for the UEFA Cup over seventh place in the league the following year . Here, too, he had a significant share with two saved penalties in the 1-0 win at Blackburn and with the performances in the 1-0 successes against Aston Villa and Portsmouth FC - in the end he became the club's best player of the 2006 season / 07 elected.

The positive sporting development finally stalled in the 2007/08 season. From a sporting point of view, things were now much worse overall, and in the end even staying up was extremely close. In March 2008, Jääskelainen injured his back while warming up against Sporting Lisbon, and so a series of 121 league games ended without interruption. His contract, which originally expired in the summer of 2008, he then extended for four more years and with the usual consistency he kept the club - especially through performances, such as the 1-0 success against relegation rivals Hull City - far from the bottom of the table. With his 400th competitive game for the Trotters, he was only the 20th player in the club's long history to reach this mark and in recognition of his services the club confessed to him a "testimonial match" - a kind of personal benefit game - against Hibernian Edinburgh in August 2009 to. Also in the 2009/10 season Jääskelainen was again an important factor in ensuring that Bolton was retained in the Premier League. In addition, he was particularly in excellent form in the 1-1 FA Cup against Tottenham Hotspur, despite his 35 years of age. In the same competition he completed his 500th competitive game for the Bolton Wanderers on March 12, 2011 against Birmingham City .

Finnish national team

After a total of 14 appearances for the Finnish U-21 team , Jääskeläinen made his debut in March 1998 against Malta for the senior team in his home country . But although he consistently established himself in English club football in the following years, he was long in the shadow of the Finnish goalkeeper Antti Niemi . Only after his resignation in May 2005 was he promoted to the regular formation and between March 2005 and October 2009 he played 15 times in World Cup qualifiers. However, he was not allowed to participate in the final round; he and his team also failed in qualifying for Euro 2008 in Switzerland and Austria . The game on October 14, 2009 against Germany (1: 1) was initially his last appearance. He then announced his resignation and only on October 6, 2010, he stood again for Finland after the injury of Otto Fredrikson .

Web links

Commons : Jussi Jääskeläinen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Player profile at the Bolton Wanderers
• Jussi Jääskeläinen in the soccerbase.com database
• Jussi Jääskeläinen in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1999-2000 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1999, ISBN 1-85291-607-9 , pp. 157 .
2. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 2000-2001 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2000, ISBN 1-85291-626-5 , pp. 169 .
3. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 2001-2002 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2001, ISBN 0-946531-34-X , pp. 157 .
4. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2002/2003 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2002, ISBN 1-85291-648-6 , pp. 211 .
5. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2003/2004 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2003, ISBN 1-85291-651-6 , pp. 219 .
6. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2004/2005 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2004, ISBN 1-85291-660-5 , pp. 209 .
7. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2005/2006 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2005, ISBN 1-85291-662-1 , pp. 209 .
8. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2006-07 . Mainstream Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-84596-111-0 , pp. 209 .
9. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2007-08 . Mainstream Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84596-246-3 , pp. 209 .
10. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2008-09 . Mainstream Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84596-324-8 , pp. 223 .
11. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2009-10 . Mainstream Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84596-474-0 , pp. 213 .
12. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2010-11 . Mainstream Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84596-601-0 , pp. 215 .
13. ↑ "Call up was a one off - Jussi" (Bolton News)