Tuomas 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 le ...

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

FC Lahti FC Lahti is a Finnish football club based in the city of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish Premier League (''Veikkausliiga'') after placing first in the Finnish First Division (''Ykkönen'') during season 2011. The homeground of FC Lah ...

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

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 ...

. He won the

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 ...

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, commonly known simply as Sandefjord, is a Norwegian professional football club, founded on 10 September 1998. The club currently competes in Eliteserien, the top tier of the Norwegian football league system. Their home ground ...

. In August 2007 he joined

HJK Helsinki Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi (), commonly known as HJK Helsinki, or simply as HJK, is a professional football club based in Helsinki, Finland. The club competes in the Finnish Veikkausliiga. Founded in 1907, the club has spent most of its history ...

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

Honours

Finnish championship Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

: 2005, 2009 *

: 2004, 2008

External links

Profile
a
HJK.fi
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Guardian Football
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haapala, Tuomas 1979 births Living people Sportspeople from Lahti Finnish footballers Finnish expatriate footballers Association football midfielders Veikkausliiga players FC Lahti players Myllykosken Pallo −47 players Manchester City F.C. players Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players Finland international footballers Sandefjord Fotball players