Europe's coldest club prepare for new season
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E-mail CNTV, January 23, 2013
Playing football in freezing cold may seemed harsh for many people. But for players of Finland's Rovaniemen Palloseura club, it is a way of life. Based in the Arctic Circle, the Finnish premier league powerhouse are now gearing up for the new season.
Based in Lapland in the Arctic Circle, Rovaniemen Palloseura may lay claim to being the coldest club in Europe.
A stalwart of Finland's premier league, the club has been playing in the freezing cold ever since its foundation in 1950.
Winter temperatures can be more than freezing. Defender Tuomo Kononen said he’d played in minus-18 Celsius before.
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Playing football in freezing cold may seemed harsh for many people. But for players of Finland's Rovaniemen Palloseura club, it is a way of life. |
Tuomo Kononen, defender of Rovaniemen Palloseurs football club, said, "If you play football when it is minus five celcius, more than minus five, it’s quite difficult to breathe because it starts to come to the lungs, but you get used to it."
The club are back in pre-season training now. Among the squad are three Nigerians, along with a player from Mexico and El Salvador. One of their teammates said foreign players can find it difficult to adjust at first.
An unknown player said, "They usually come here in January time, when the pre-season starts. So when they come here it's really cold, a lot of snow, so it's a bit different for them! It takes two weeks or three weeks that they can even understand that they are here in Lapland."
Despite all the difficulties, generations of players hold on their love for football. The squad won the Finnish Cup in 1986 and reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1987–88.
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