Mäkinen targets Sweden scalp

By Kevin Ashby in Preston

Playmaker Anne Mäkinen hopes Finland can reproduce their sterling second-half showing against England when they take on a Sweden side featuring a handful of her club colleagues from Umeå IK in Blackpool on Wednesday.

Sparring partner
Finland's first-ever match in a UEFA European Women's Championship got off to an inauspicious start at the City of Manchester stadium on Sunday as they trailed the tournament hosts 2-0 at the interval. Following England's half-time withdrawal of Mäkinen's old Philadelphia Charge sparring partner, Kelly Smith, however, the Finns were able to press more and gallanty fought level only for their toil to be undone by Karen Carney's added-time winner.

Club colleagues
Having tackled the hosts in front of a crowd approaching 30,000, another daunting task awaits Finland at Bloomfield Road as they take on Sweden in their second Group A game. For the six Finns who ply their trade in the Allsvenskan - including Umeå IK trio Mäkinen, Sanna Valkonen and Jessica Julin - Wednesday's game has a special resonance. "I'm really looking forward to coming up against some of my Umeå colleagues," Mäkinen told uefa.com.

Mäkinen hope
"Their starting central midfielders against Denmark [Malin Moström and Frida Östberg] are both club-mates so it should certainly be an interesting match-up. We know so many of their players and really want to beat them. They've always got the better of us in the past but we're a lot closer to them now as a team and hopefully we can pull it off."

US experience
Mäkinen knows all about large crowds after playing professionally in the United States, and revelled in the big-match atmosphere in Manchester. "It was pretty amazing with 30,000 spectators and you couldn't really hear yourself on the pitch," she said. "It's a record in the women's game in Europe and it's great to be part of that. However, it's obviously disappointing to lose 3-2 when there's one minute left in the game, especially after such a comeback."