Jimi Weikko Tauriainen (born 9 March 2004) is a Finnish professional

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 le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

club Chelsea.

Club career

Born in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, Tauriainen began his footballing career with academy side FC Wild, a club his father had been involved in creating, at the age of five. He joined professional outfit HJK in 2016, before trialling with Italian sides

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

and

Inter Milan Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Football in Italy, Italian professional Association football, football ...

, as well as English side Chelsea in 2020. In March 2020, shortly after his sixteenth birthday, HJK announced on their website that Tauriainen would join Chelsea in July of the same year, following his successful trial. Initially a forward during his time in Finland, he was converted to a midfielder at Chelsea. He signed his first professional contract with ''The Blues'' on his seventeenth birthday, before extending this contract four months later, in July 2021.

International career

Tauriainen has represented Finland from under-15 to under-19 level.

Personal life

Tauriainen hails from a footballing family; his father, Pasi, was an international for

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, while his brother,

Julius The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the ...

, currently plays for Finnish side

Lahti Lahti (; sv, Lahtis) is a city and municipality in Finland. It is the capital of the region of Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme) and its growing region is one of the main economic hubs of Finland. Lahti is situated on a bay at the southern e ...

. His uncles, Kimmo and Vesa, were also footballers.

Career statistics

Club

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tauriainen, Jimi 2004 births Living people Footballers from Helsinki Finnish men's footballers Finland men's youth international footballers Men's association football midfielders Men's association football forwards Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players Chelsea F.C. players Finnish expatriate men's footballers Finnish expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in England