Mika Lehkosuo, nicknamed "Bana", (born 8 January 1970) is a Finnish

football manager ''Football Manager'', also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008, is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

and former player who works as the head coach for the Finland U21 national team.

Playing career

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

, Lehkosuo played most of his career at HJK Helsinki. He was not a very prominent youth player and made his top division debut in 1993 after spending three years with lower division club Vantaan Pallo. He did not make his breakthrough into the HJK senior squad until 1995, when he made 24 league appearances and scored one goal. In the previous season he had even played one league match for FF Jaro. In the following seasons Lehkosuo received more and more responsibilities and became one of the best midfielders in the Veikkausliiga. In the end of the 1990s he formed the successful midfield trio with Aki Riihilahti and Jarkko Wiss with whom he won the league title in 1997 and worked their way to the group stage of

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

in the next season. A sponsorship deal with a local radio station meant that Lehkuosuo wore the unusual shirt number 96.2 for a period at HJK Helsinki. This deal ended when he was forbidden to wear the number in UEFA Champions League matches. Lehkuosuo captained HJK in the group stage of the Champions League that season, helping HJK become the first ever Finnish team to earn that distinction. In the winter of 1998 Lehkosuo was signed on loan by Italian

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

side

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

. He only played eleven games in Italy and returned to HJK for the next Veikkausliiga season. In 1999 and 2000 Lehkosuo was made the captain of the HJK squad and he played in a more attacking role. However, in August 2000 Lehkosuo injured his knee ligament. The knee didn't fully recover and Lehkosuo was forced to end his playing career in 2002 after playing 190 matches in Veikkausliiga, of which he played 189 for HJK.

International career

Lehkosuo played 17 matches for the Finnish national team and scored one goal.

Managerial career

Lehkosuo started his managerial career with HJK youth teams quickly after retiring as a player. In 2005, he was appointed as assistant manager of Ville Lyytikäinen of

Ykkönen ''Ykkönen'' (Finnish language, Finnish for 'Number One'; , previously I divisioona) is the third highest level of the Finnish football league system (after the Veikkausliiga and Ykkösliiga), managed by the Football Association of Finland. Until ...

(the second tier) side

FC Honka FC Honka is a Finland, Finnish Association football, football club based in Espoo. It was founded in 1957 as Tapion Honka, and changed its name to FC Honka in 1975. The club will play in Kakkonen in the 2024 season, after Esport Honka filed for ...

. After Lyytikäinen was sacked, Lehkosuo became head coach. He guided the team to the top place of Ykkönen. In the first season in the

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga () is a professional association football league in Finland and the highest level of the Finnish football league system. The league comprises the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agenc ...

Lehkosuo guided his team to a fourth-place finish. In 2007 Honka was again fourth. In 2008 Lehkosuo guided Honka to second place and to the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

qualifications for the next season. In 2009 Honka was again second in the league table. Lehkosuo managed Honka until February 2014. On 29 April 2014, Lehkosuo was appointed as the manager of HJK after Sixten Boström was sacked. He led HJK into the Europa League group stages in 2014 with a 5–4 aggregate victory over Rapid Wien in the play-off round. After winning three Veikkausliiga titles and two Finnish Cups, he left the club in May 2019. Lehkosuo was appointed head coach of Norwegian 1. divisjon club Kongsvinger in December 2019. He was dismissed in September 2020 after Kongsvinger picked up only 13 points from 18 games. However, he continued with the club as a

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and the development director until the end of 2022. In January 2023, Lehkosuo started as a head coach of the Finland under-21 national team. He led the team to qualify for the 2025 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament, for the second time in the nation's history, after finishing 2nd in the Group E and defeating

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

in the play-offs 6–3 on aggregate.

Personal life

Lehkosuo graduated as a Master of Science in Technology from

Helsinki University of Technology Helsinki University of Technology (TKK; ; , HUT in international usage) was a technical university in Finland. It was located in Otaniemi, Espoo in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and it was one of the three universities from which the modern d ...

in 2003.

Career statistics

Club

International

International goals

:''As of match played 18 August 1999. Finland score listed first, score column indicates score after each Lehkosuo goal.''

Managerial statistics

Honours

As a player

HJK *

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

Finnish Cup The Finnish Cup (; ) is Finland's main national cup competition in football. This yearly competition is open for all member clubs of the FA of Finland and has been played since 1955. The winner qualifies for the UEFA Europa Conference League ...

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

* Finnish League Cup: 1996, 1997, 1998 Individual *HJK Hall of Fame Inductee

As a manager

FC Honka *Finnish Cup:

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

*Finnish League Cup:

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

HJK *Veikkausliiga:

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

*Finnish Cup:

, 2016–17 *Finnish League Cup:

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

Individual * Finnish Football Manager of the Year: 2014, 2017 *

Coach of the Month: October 2011, May 2013, June 2013, May 2014, September 2014, May 2016, April 2017, June 2017 *

Manager of the Year:

References

* https://web.archive.org/web/20110720194121/http://www.urheiluarkisto.fi/portals/44/veikkausliiga20v/pelaajat/lehkosuo.htm * https://archive.today/20100514124031/http://www.fchonka.fi/joukkue/group/10b6b4d8fec511dba79a4d356af4849a849a/4d09c21e15ad11dc9ab4f92f934831e431e4/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Lehkosuo, Mika 1970 births Living people Finnish men's footballers Finnish expatriate men's footballers Finland men's international footballers Finnish football managers Men's association football midfielders Veikkausliiga players Serie A players Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players FC Honka managers Klubi 04 players AC Perugia Calcio players Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Finnish expatriate sportspeople in Italy Veikkausliiga managers Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi managers Finnish expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Norway Finnish expatriate sportspeople in Norway Kongsvinger IL Toppfotball managers Footballers from Helsinki Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi non-playing staff