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We may still be a day shy of putting on our tinfoil hats and blaming the scheduling computers for all of our future Premier League woes, but we have at least one more date to add to our calendars, a pre-season friendly against Finnish champions HJK Helsinki.
The match will be held at Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, and if you cannot quite remember when Finland hosted the Olympics, it was in 1952 (thanks Wikipedia). Kick-off will be at 7:30 PM local time (5:30 BST/12:30 EST).
On the official team website, Liverpool's Chief Commercial Officer, Bill Hogan explained:
LFC has a massive fanbase in Scandinavia and, of course, in Finland because of Sami Hyypia, and I am sure they will be looking forward to seeing the team play against Finland's champions in their final tune-up for the Barclays Premier League season.
First, good on Hogan for knowing the difference between Scandinavia and Nordic countries. Second, OMG HYYPIA IS COMING BACK TO LFC TO COACH! Right? That's what this means, right? He's definitely coming, right? Well, probably not, but we can dream.
On paper, the match might not be as exciting as hosting Dortmund last year, or playing Celtic in Dublin the year before, but the ongoing construction at Anfield surely complicated matters.
Still, the match should be a good tune up for the season, as HJK Helsinki have won the last 6 domestic titles, and finished 3rd in their Europa League group last year. Like it or not, these are the kinds of teams we'll have to face in our yet-to-be-determined group. The game also pays homage to the massive Liverpool support shown by our Nordic fans.
The two teams share a bit of history, meeting competitively in the second round of the 1982 European Cup, with Liverpool winning 5-1 on aggregate. The Reds also won their last friendly 2-0, also held in Helsinki 25 years ago.
Tickets go on sale today at 10 AM BST.
