Lassi Lappalainen (born 24 August 1998) 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 winger for

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

club

CF Montréal CF Montréal is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Montréal, Québec, Canada. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1992 as the Montreal Impact (french: Impact de Montréal, links=no), ...

and the Finland national team.

Club career

Early career

Born in

Espoo Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...

in 1998, Lappalainen started his football career with Espoon palloseura (EPS) and later moved to HJK youth team. Lappalainen played in

Klubi 04 Klubi 04 is a Finland, Finnish football (soccer), football club based in Helsinki. It is the reserve team of Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi for whom a number of the players are also registered. History Klubi 04 was founded in 2004 when HJK bought FC ...

, the reserve team of HJK.

HJK

In 2016, Lappalainen was called up for HJK's first team. On 2 April 2016, he made his

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga (; sv, Tipsligan) is the premier division of Finnish football, the highest tier of the Finnish football league structure, comprising the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agency Veikkau ...

debut against

IFK Mariehamn IFK Mariehamn is an Ålandic football club based in Mariehamn, the capital of the Åland Islands. It plays in the Finnish Premier Division (''Veikkausliiga''). The club is managed by Daniel Norrmén, and it plays its home matches at Wiklö ...

Sonera Stadium The Bolt Arena (named Telia 5G -areena until January 2020, named Sonera Stadium until April 2017, and Finnair Stadium until August 2010; also known as ''Töölön jalkapallostadion'', "Töölö football stadium") is a football stadium in Helsinki, ...

, being substituted on by coach

Mika Lehkosuo Mika "Bana" Lehkosuo (born 8 January 1970) is a Finland, Finnish manager (association football), football manager and former midfielder, and working as a coach for Finland national under-21 football team, Finland U-21 national team. Playing care ...

in place of

Nnamdi Oduamadi Nnamdi Oduamadi Chidiebere (born 17 October 1990), also known by his shirt name Odu, is a Nigerian footballer who plays as a forward, currently under contract for Eccellenza club Colleferro. Club career Early career Born in Lagos, Oduama ...

in the 90th minute. On 21 July 2017, Lappalainen was loaned to

RoPS Rops may refer to: People * Daniel-Rops (1901–1965), French writer and historian * Félicien Rops (1833–1898), Belgian artist Places * Rops (peak), a mountain in Kosovo Sports * Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS), a Finnish football club Tech ...

for remainder of the Veikkausliiga season. Two days later, he scored his first league goal for RoPS just five minutes into his debut after coming on as a substitute.

Bologna

On 19 July 2019, Lappalainen signed to Italian

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

club

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

. HJK Helsinki stated it received "significant compensation" and that economically, the transfer was in the "top 7 of HJK's club history".

Montreal

On 25 July 2019, it was announced that Lappalainen was loaned to

(MLS) club Montreal Impact, later renamed as

, for the remainder of the 2019 season using

Targeted Allocation Money Allocation money, in Major League Soccer, represents an amount of money that teams may use to sign players and/or allocate to their salaries to get under the salary cap. Reasons for obtaining MLS teams receive general allocation money for these r ...

. The Impact have options to extend the loan until 30 June 2020, as well as until 31 December 2020. On 27 July 2019, he contributed two goals to Montreal Impact's 4–0 victory over the first-place Philadelphia Union on his Major League Soccer debut. On 3 December 2021, Lappalainen's move to Montréal was made permanent.

International career

Lappalainen made his debut for the Finland national team on 8 January 2019 in a friendly against

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, as a starter. Lappalainen was called up for the

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2020) or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

pre-tournament friendly match against Sweden on 29 May 2021.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Montreal Impact *

Canadian Championship The Canadian Championship (french: Championnat canadien) is an annual soccer tournament contested by premier Canadian professional teams. The winner is awarded the Voyageurs Cup and Canada's berth in the CONCACAF Champions League. It is contest ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lappalainen, Lassi Living people 1998 births People from Espoo Men's association football forwards Finnish men's footballers Finland men's youth international footballers Finland men's under-21 international footballers Finland men's international footballers Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players Klubi 04 players Rovaniemen Palloseura players Bologna FC 1909 players CF Montréal players Veikkausliiga players Kakkonen players Major League Soccer players UEFA Euro 2020 players Finnish expatriate men's footballers Finnish expatriate sportspeople in Canada Expatriate men's soccer players in Canada