Thoughts on VAR

FIFA world cup 2026 champion is Spain. The tournament is over and refereeing decisions were in the headlines even though video assisted refereeing (VAR) was supposed to clarify decision making of referees, remove controversial decisions and help referees to make fair decisions. VAR was introduced to Fifa World Cup in Russia on 2018 and is working much better now but it has not removed controversial refereeing decisions. 

I follow international football with VAR and Finnish league football without VAR. As a spectator I don't feel that Finnish football is unfair or unwatchable without VAR. The rules of football simply let room for referees to make their own interpretation with or without VAR. The rules of football just can lead to a "wrong" team to win and make supporters of one team angry. As one goal has such a big impact in football often winning team might not be a better team based on events in the match. Spain was clearly better than Argentina in World cup final 2026 and VAR was not needed to determine the winner.

I believe that the rules of football which leaves space for interpretation is actually good for football and has helped it to grow so big sport. The controversial decisions makes the game more emotional. The players and the fans get emotional. The press gets headlines to write about. There is a reason to watch again controversial events. Many other sports are more fair like tennis and athletics where the winner is very rarely questioned because of refereeing. 

Sorry for winning

Konsta Helenius scored winning goal on overtime against Switzerland and secured the ice hockey world championship to Finland. The commentator Jani Alkio erupts celebrating the goal but soon after the celebrations he says "Anteeksi Sveitsi" and expert commentator Jesse Joensuu first word after the goal is "Anteeksi". Both Finnish commentators apologize by saying "I'm sorry" in Finnish. The goal was fair, there was no controversial decision by the referee. The whole match was fair without big controversies but still commentators felt like they had to say sorry. Is it that nowadays people apologize victories in sports because the losing players get dissapointed. It made it sound like that Finnish commentators wished that Switzerland wins after two defeated finals. I'm sure that if the players of Finland would feel that much sympathy towards the opponent they would have no chance to win a match. 

Thoughts on AI

AI has been in headlines. AI company Anthropic is growing faster than any company before. Data centers are built in Finland and people are worried that it will raise the electricity prices for consumers.

I'm impressed how good pictures and video AI can create. Other strength of AI is coding so soon anyone can be a developer. People are interacting with AI instead of people. I wonder can some people prefer more AI interaction than human interaction. You can solve problems with AI but will it take away the gratification of problem solving.

Huge gym in Espoo

 

Loft gym

Yesterday I went to a huge gym with 3000 square meters space in Espoo. The entrance was easy to find but the first impression was dissapointing because you have to walk up a dull staircase few floors up before you reach the main lobby with nice atmosphere. For such a big gym it was surprising to see just few showers and no sauna in the dressing room. The gym is an old office floor so the ceiling is not high. There is a big variety of machines and I could try out machines which I hadn't tried before. Also big functional training area but no group training room. There was mirrors only in the dumbell section. I would need more training sessions in the gym to give proper review but based on the first impression I wouldn't give 5 stars. 

Reading deadline

I started writing down the titles of the books I read about 10 years ago. Since then I have read 121 books. The most of the books I have borrowed from library and I have noticed that the loan time gives me a good deadline to finish the books. For example best seller books have a loan time of two weeks which pushes me to read more and finish the book faster in two weeks as regular loan time is one month. I bought the first book of an author whose blog I have been reading many years. It took me over two years to finish the book and in the meantime I read over 20 books from library. The same author published his second book when I had not yet finished the first book. I managed to borrow the second book from library and finished reading the second book before the first book. Good real life examples how deadlines make me read more.

KuPS making history

KuPS is the best Finnish football team at the moment. They have won two Finnish Championships in row and made history by being the first Finnish team qualifying from the Conference group stage which meant winter outdoor match in - 14 degrees in February.  The club had a great season also financially by earning over 5 million prize money from UEFA and 3 million from transfer fees. As a KuPS supporter I have been delighted for the wins and looking forward for a bright future as stadium project is also moving forward in Kuopio. KuPS has still plenty of work to grow their fan base and attract more spectators. This season also Bodo/Glimt has proved that a club from small town from north can compete against big clubs by qualifying to top 16 in Champions league. 

Housing market crisis in Finland

Housing prices have been going down and not many new houses are built. I wrote a blog post 2,5 years ago if it would make sense for me to buy a home instead of renting. The conclusion was that it didn't make sense financially and now after housing prices have gone down, the decision to not buy has been a good one. Today I checked that the same size apartment in the same address is available for 250k so the price has lowered 50k. Now monthly down payments for a 250k mortgage of 30 years with 2,8 interest rate would be 1 032 EUR. Adding the monthly maintaining costs it would mean paying every month 1 268 EUR. That is slightly above my rent so buying would make more sense now. People are wondering will the prices of homes keep on going lower, better. Or if you believe the prices will start going up, it's a good time to buy now.

Coaching volleyball

I have been coaching beginner level juniors aged 13 - 16 in volleyball two times a week for an year. It has been a pleasure to see players developing and some of the them have been already drafted to competing teams. I feel a bit sad when good players advance to competing team cause then they're not anymore part of my coaching squad. 

I have seen articles how all levels of players should be given a chance to train. Often I have noticed that players with low level don't seem to have motivation to practice or making their best effort in the practice. The level of the players' motivation also impacts my motivation to coach so I understand the difficulty of finding good coaches for players with low level of skills. If player doesn't seem to listen, follow your instructions, attends training session seldom etc. You start to wonder why couldn't they give the spot for someone else who is more enthuastic. For example in my volleyball club we're lacking coaches so we cannot offer a spot for all the interested players.

Looking forward for the next semester of training and I'm thinking about coaching a competing team. 

Interactive wall for games with ball

Multiball in Superpark Turku

Finally I had a chance to play Multiball what I had been looking forward to play almost an year. The set up in Turku was only for tennis with slanted floor. The space was also quite small so based on what I had seen the game could offer much more with more space and with additional sports equipment.

I enjoyed playing but some available games were very difficult as the game ended in under 30 seconds. Also the calibration was slightly off because the projector had moved and moved even more during the time I stayed in the location. My observation was that kids prefered more trampolines of the location than Multiball. The interactive wall was fun but it cannot beat playing tennis against opponent with similar skill level. 

You can live in an old prison in Finland

The main building

Yard

Last weekend I visited an old prison of Kakola in Turku. The old prison has been transformed to apartments and hotel rooms. You can find in the area a spa, escape room adventure, restaurant and other services. The funicular which is famous for not working takes you to the top of the hill where the old prison is located. Also in Helsinki you can find a prison that has been transformed to a hotel if you're interested in staying in a prison.

You cannot find such unique look and thick walls in modern buildings.