Tuomas Juhani Haapala (born 20 April 1979) is a Finnish former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who ended his career after 2010. Haapala has previously played for

FC Lahti FC Lahti is a Finnish professional football club based in the city of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish second tier Ykkösliiga, after relegating from Veikkausliiga after the 2024 season. The homeground of Lahti is Toolpoint Arena. La ...

(2000–03) and MyPa (2004–05) in the Finnish

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 ...

. He won the

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 ...

with MyPa in 2004, and captained the club to the Finnish championship in 2005. After an excellent 2005 season, Haapala was invited for a trial with Manchester City. After two weeks at the club, manager

Stuart Pearce Stuart Pearce (born 24 April 1962) is an English professional football manager and former player, who was most recently a first-team coach for Premier League club West Ham United. He was nicknamed "Psycho" for his unforgiving style of play. ...

decided to offer him a contract to the end of the 2005–06 season. However, Haapala failed to break into the first team, and made only reserve team appearances. After his long try-out in Manchester he signed for

Sandefjord Fotball Sandefjord Fotball, often referred to simply as Sandefjord, is a Norwegian professional football club founded on September 10, 1998. The team currently competes in Eliteserien, the top division of the Norwegian football league system, and plays ...

. In August 2007 he joined

HJK Helsinki Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi (), commonly known as HJK Helsinki (), or simply as HJK (), is a Finnish football club based in Helsinki. The club competes in Veikkausliiga, the top division of the Finnish football league system. Founded in 1907, the ...

. After three seasons with HJK, Haapala joined Tampere United for the season 2010, which was his last year as a professional football player. Haapala played his first game for the Finnish national team on 12 October 2005 against

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

Career statistics

Tuomas Juhani Haapala stats
Norwegian FA

Honours

* Finnish championship: 2005, 2009 *

: 2004, 2008

References

External links

Profile
a
HJK.fi
*
Guardian Football
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haapala, Tuomas 1979 births Living people Footballers from Lahti Finnish men's footballers Finnish expatriate men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Veikkausliiga players FC Lahti players Myllykosken Pallo −47 players Manchester City F.C. players Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players Finland men's international footballers Sandefjord Fotball players Finnish expatriate sportspeople in England Finnish expatriate sportspeople in Norway Expatriate men's footballers in England Expatriate men's footballers in Norway