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Pukki starts for Finland against Denmark

Finland’s in-form striker, Teemu Pukki, starts for the Eagle Owls against Denmark in Esbjerg tonight. Coach Mixu Paatelainen named his team this afternoon, and the Schalke striker replaces Leeds United’s Mikael Forssell in Finland’s opening lineup.

Finland’s defence gets a revamp from the previous game against Hungary, with Jukka Raitala and Kari Arkivuo out injured and Veli Lampi and Markus Halsti coming in to replace them. Petri Pasanen returns to the centre of defence in place of Joona Toivio.

Roman Eremenko, who was named last night as Finland’s footballer of the year, will start his 40th international in central midfield. His brother Alexei Eremenko Jr re-joins the side after missing the previous internationals.

Denmark manager Morten Olsen commented earlier in the week that Finland were ’better than Sweden’, who his side beat 2-0 on Friday.

Finland line-up:

1 Otto Fredrikson

2 Petri Pasanen

3 Niklas Moisander

5 Veli Lampi

7 Roman Eremenko

10 Teemu Pukki

14 Tim Sparv

15 Markus Halsti

19 Alexander Ring

20 Alexei Eremenko jr

21 Kasper Hämäläinen

Substitutes:

12 Lukas Hradecky

4 Juhani Ojala

6 Ville Jalasto

8 Perparim Hetemaj

9 Mikael Forssell

11 Riku Riski

13 Kari Arkivuo

16 Daniel Sjölund

18 Berat Sadik

22 Jukka Raitala

Sources: YLE