Markku Tapio Kanerva (born 24 May 1964) 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 bega ...

, former player and elementary school teacher. He is the current manager of the Finnish national team.

Playing career

Kanerva, who is known by the nickname ''"Rive"'', was 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 ...

. In Finland, he played as a central defender and full back in his hometown clubs HJK (1983–1990 and 1994–1998) and the season 1994 in the then local rivals

FinnPa Finnairin Palloilijat, or FinnPa as the club is more commonly known as, was a Finnish association football club established in 1965. The club was based in Helsinki and it operated from 1965 to 1998. FinnPa was founded by staff of the Finnish natio ...

. The seasons 1991 and 1992, he played in the Swedish team

IF Elfsborg Idrottsföreningen Elfsborg, more commonly known as IF Elfsborg or simply Elfsborg (), is a professional football club based in Borås, Sweden, and is affiliated to the Västergötlands Fotbollförbund. They play in the Allsvenskan and have spent ...

. At international level, Kanerva went on to win 59 caps, and scored one goal for the Finnish national team. His last years as a player were shadowed by injuries, but he was still an important part of the HJK defence. His playing career ended in 1998 which included the historical Champions League participation. At the Finnish top league, he played total of 291 matches and scored 29 goals.

Coaching career

Kanerva worked as a school teacher already during his playing career, but since then he has been concentrating on football coaching. In 2001 and 2002, he was an assistant coach of

Jyrki Heliskoski Jyrki Antero ("Jyrä") Heliskoski (September 28, 1945 – December 28, 2020) was a Finnish football coach. Heliskoski worked briefly as the head coach of the Finland national team from July 2005 to January 2006. He then continued as an assistant ...

and Keith Armstrong in his former club HJK, and in 2003 he was the head coach of the East Helsinki club

FC Viikingit FC Viikingit is a Finnish football club based in Vuosaari, East Helsinki, and currently playing in the ''Kakkonen'', the third tier of Finnish football. They play their home matches at Vuosaaren urheilukenttä, also called Heteniitty. The club ...

. As the head coach of under-21 side, he led the team to the 2009 European Championships final tournament. In the same year, he was awarded the Coach of the Year in Finland. On 29 November 2010, it was announced that Kanerva would coach the Finnish national team for the Spring period in 2011 while the Finnish FA will be seeking a new head coach.

Mika Laurikainen Mika Laurikainen (born 28 April 1963) is a Finnish football manager who works as a director of sports for Finnish Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga (; sv, Tipsligan) is the premier division of Finnish football, the highest tier of the Finnish fo ...

took his place as the U21 coach. Kanerva had another spell as caretaker manager of Finland in 2015. In December 2016 he was permanently appointed manager of the Finnish national team on a three-year contract. In November 2019, he managed his Finland team to qualification 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 ...

Managerial statistics

Honours and Achievements

Player

HJK * Mestaruussarja / Veikkausliiga (5): 1985, 1987,

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

, 1997. *

Finnish Cup The Finnish Cup ( fi, Suomen cup; sv, Finlands 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 ...

(3): 1984, 1996, 1998. *

Finnish League Cup The Finnish League Cup was a knock-out association football, football competition contested annually during the pre-season in winter by teams from Veikkausliiga. The league cup was abolished after the 2016 tournament and replaced with the Finnish C ...

(4): 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998.

Manager

Finland *

UEFA Nations League The UEFA Nations League is a biennial international football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body. The first tournament began in September 2018. The ...

, (1): 2018–19 League C.

Sources

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanerva, Markku 1964 births Living people Association football defenders Finnish footballers Finland international footballers Finnish football managers Finnish expatriate footballers Finnish expatriate sportspeople in Sweden Expatriate footballers in Sweden Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players IF Elfsborg players FC Honka players FinnPa players Finland national football team managers UEFA Euro 2020 managers Footballers from Helsinki