Toni Kuivasto

Toni Kuivasto
Toni Kuivasto in 2010
Personnel
birthday	December 31, 1975
place of birth	Tampere ,  Finland
size	187 cm
position	Defender ( central defender )
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1992-1996	Tampereen Ilves	77 (5)
1997-1998	Myllycosken Pallo -47	46 (2)
1999-2000	HJK	60 (2)
2001-2003	Viking FK	62 (6)
2003-2009	Djurgårdens IF	165 (6)
2010	FC Haka	21 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
	Finland U-17 to U-18	3 (0)
	Finland U-21	11 (0)
1997-2009	Finland	75 (1)
1 Only league games are given. Status: end of season 2010

Toni Kuivasto (born December 31, 1975 in Tampere ) is a Finnish football player . The defender , who played 75 international matches for the Finnish national team between 1997 and 2009 , has played in Finland, Sweden and Norway during his career to date.

Career

Career start in Finland

Kuivasto comes from the youth of Tampereen Ilves . He made his debut for the club from his hometown in August 1992 in a game against FC Honka in Finnish professional football. Initially only a supplementary player, he could play in the team from 1994. Although he mostly had to play against relegation with his club, he recommended himself for the national team. In February 1997 he made his debut in the 1: 2 defeat of the Finnish national team against the Malaysian national team in the national jersey.

At the beginning of the same year, after the relegation of his club within the Veikkausliiga , Kuivasto moved to league rivals MyPa , where he established himself as a regular player and played all 27 games this season in his first year. After the end of the following season he moved to the capital club HJK . In the 1999 season he only missed a season game and thus contributed to the runner-up behind Valkeakosken Haka . Also in the following year he played almost every game, it was enough for fourth place.

Moving abroad and winning titles

Kuivasto had meanwhile made a name for himself abroad. Before the start of the 2001 season , he joined the Norwegian club Viking FK after over 180 games in the Veikkausliiga . In his first year in the Tippeligaen he reached third place in the table with the club behind master Rosenborg BK and Lillestrøm SK . In addition, he moved with the team at the side of Morten Berre , Bjørn Dahl , Erik Nevland and his compatriot Hannu Tihinen in the cup final, which was successfully made by a 3-0 win over Bryne FK . After a fourth place the following year, he moved to the Swedish Allsvenskan in early July 2003 .

For the Stockholm club Djurgårdens IF , Kuivasto played 13 games this season until the end of the 2003 season and thus contributed to winning the Lennart Johansson Cup for the Swedish national champions. The following year he stayed in the regular lineup and played every minute of the game. In the following seasons Kuivasto was one of the regular players both at his club and in the national team. With the team around players like Matías Concha , Fredrik Stenman and Johan Arneng , he missed defending the title in fourth place in the table, but he moved into the final of the Swedish National Cup against IFK Göteborg after goals from two-time goalscorers Daniel Sjölund and Andreas Johansson ended in a 3-1 win.

In the 2005 season Kuivasto ran under coach Kjell Jonevret in 23 season games. At the side of Pa Dembo Tourray , Markus Johannesson and Tobias Hysén , he won his second championship title in Sweden. In addition, he reached the cup final again with the club. Against Åtvidabergs FF , like last year, he was on the field for the entire game. In the 2-0 win, he made a name for himself alongside Hysén as a goal scorer in cup history and helped the club win a double .

Kuivasto stayed in the main lineup until he had to undergo meniscus surgery in the summer of 2006 and was sidelined due to an injury. After his recovery, he went straight back to the starting lineup. With the club, however, he could not build on his previous successes, but with the national team he was able to surprise in the qualification for the European Championship 2008 . In Group A, the team narrowly missed their first participation in a European Championship finals with three points behind the second-placed Portuguese national team, but under national coach Stuart Baxter he was less and less used.

In the 2009 season still a regular at Djurgårdens IF , the club decided not to extend Kuivasto's contract, which was running out at the end of the year. He was subsequently without a club before signing a one-year contract with Finnish club FC Haka in early February .

Web links

• Toni Kuivasto in the database of weltfussball.de
• Toni Kuivasto on the official website of the Finnish Football Association (Finnish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ dif.se: "Toni Kuivasto klar för Djurgården"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 13, 2010)  
2. ↑ dif.se: “Dubbla guld!” ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2010 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. (accessed on January 13, 2010) 
3. ↑ svt.se: "Barsom och Kuivasto skadade" (accessed on January 13, 2010)
4. ↑ dif.se: "Toni Kuivasto slutar i DIF" ( Memento of the original from December 4, 2009 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. (accessed on January 13, 2010) 
5. ↑ tidningen.ax: "Toni Kuivasto klar för FC Haka" (accessed on September 22, 2010)