{"id":145089,"date":"2026-08-13T13:56:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/145089\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T13:56:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:56:34","slug":"alfred-johansson-very-proud-as-motherwell-hold-hjk-helsinki-in-europe-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/145089\/","title":{"rendered":"Alfred Johansson \u2018very proud\u2019 as Motherwell hold HJK Helsinki in Europe \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alfred Johansson was \u201cvery proud\u201d of his Motherwell side as they maintained their unbeaten start to his reign with a 1-1 draw away to HJK Helsinki in the first leg of their Conference League third qualifying round tie.<\/p>\n

The Lanarkshire side\u2019s new Swedish boss briefly looked on course for his fourth consecutive victory at the helm when Tawanda Maswanhise\u2019s penalty gave the Steelmen the lead at the Bolt Arena just after the hour following a foul on Regan Charles-Cook.<\/p>\n

But 36-year-old former Celtic and Norwich striker Teemu Pukki stepped off the bench to equalise with his first touch in the 71st minute, while Well midfielder Alex Lowry was down injured, leaving the tie delicately poised ahead of next week\u2019s second leg at Fir Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played a good performance today,\u201d said Johansson. \u201cI\u2019m very, very proud of the players. That was impressive, to be honest, from where I\u2019m sat.<\/p>\n

\"Celtic<\/a>\"Ulster<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we dug deep and we played parts of the game at a high level.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond half, long period was really good. It was an unfortunate situation where we conceded the goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had one guy down and it\u2019s a very experienced number nine they have. It can happen. I\u2019m proud of the performance, I think we\u2019ve done a good job here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johansson was particularly pleased with the way Well seized the initiative in the second half after a cagey first period.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the players started to be even more brave in their decision-making,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we were breaking lines a little bit better.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s mainly the players who decided to say, \u2018no, okay, let\u2019s play, let\u2019s do our thing\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys were also more aggressive in the pressure in the second half, which allows you then to recover a couple of balls higher up the pitch, which then maybe gives you two minutes here, three minutes there with possession on their half, which then makes you feel more confident on the ball as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the players, they just turned up the heat a little bit. That was good to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever prevails at Fir Park next week will face a glamour showdown with Europa League runners-up Freiburg in the play-off round.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to play at home, at Fir Park, with all of our people in the stands, it\u2019s something obviously to look forward to,\u201d said Johansson. \u201cThat\u2019s something for next week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alfred Johansson was \u201cvery proud\u201d of his Motherwell side as they maintained their unbeaten start to his reign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[87],"tags":[66150,158,113,47908,69198,55693,5262,133,64709,9317],"class_list":["post-145089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-helsinki","tag-alfred-johansson","tag-finland","tag-helsinki","tag-hjk","tag-hjk-vs-motherwell","tag-motherwell","tag-scotland","tag-soccer","tag-uefa-conference-league-qualifying","tag-uk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117088550082633112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}