Fun night in Farum

Why fun you ask? Was it a good game, did you have a great hot dog??

Let’s get to it 🙂

Not too small, not too big

So, the game was Denmark vs Finland in EuroBasket 2025 qualifying – a game which unfortunately had nothing riding on it after the way the results went on Friday.

Funnily enough I had been to Farum Arena just few weeks prior, when I had my roadtrip for the Susiladies games – Farum seemed like a great place and I am a little bit sad that we stayed in Copenhagen and not Farum with the team .. (although I did spend time in Farum and enjoyed walking around the town – and the B-train came familiar as well!!)

Farum Arena – which some Finns said to me on social media ‘that it does not look like an Arena’ – was JUST the right size for a game like this. The Danish Basketball Federation had done a great job making it look like their ‘home’ – the red and white towels, Danish colors everywhere, crowd close to the action, lots of young fans..

There is just something in these venues of 1500-3000 that work SO MUCH BETTER for qualifying games than the big 6000-10000 seaters. And yes – of course if you can sell 10000 tickets for a game – you want to do it from the financial point of view.

But venues like Farum Arena (just one example) – it feels like all the fans are really close to the action, there are no seats ‘up in the gods’ .. and the whole event just feels more intimate.

Hypeman and stuff

OK – this kind of thing works when you head outside Finland – and the ‘hype man/hype team’ at the game really got the crowd going, at the same time I know if this kind of thing would be attempted in Finland.. the crowd would just awkwardly look at their phones and wonder what are we supposed to do now… 😉

But – in Denmark it worked .. with the mix of Danish/English – the hype team never really stopped during the game and with a right choice in music as well ( the guitar hero was a nice touch!) – even as the photographer for the Finnish team.. I felt like it was a super event to be a part of.

As said – these kind of things work great in the right places – and luckily for the game/event – it seems like Denmark was a place where it worked.

Game

Game itself – Finland had already qualified to the tournament as a host – Denmark lost their chance with the defeat in Tbilisi few days earlier.

Most of the game Denmark were in the driving seat, and home fans were loving it. Finnish fans kept on shouting their advice to the Susijengi players right from the tip-off – as well as having plenty of swearwords for the referees (funny how referees always get the stick when your team doesn’t play that well 😉 ).

And returning to the size of the venue – in a bigger venues the 15-20 Finnish fans would not have been noticed at all – but in this size venue, they did make enough noise to be noticed.

In the end, the Finnish team had just enough to come back from behind and take the win – and thus ending the qualification with 2 wins out of 6 games.

Nostalgia?

Maybe I have been around for too long in this game, as I look back warmly to the days when the games were in smaller venues – times move on and bigger venues have become the norm for International games .. where as it brings in more fans to the games and more money.. just from my personal point of view.. something is also lost to the vast spaces of major arenas

Big shout out to to the Danish Federation

Well done – this probably was the favourite venue for me in the qualifiers – it did also help that I could shoot from floor level and the darn LED-boards were not surrounding the whole court.. and it really shows in the photos that they were taken from floor level – and not 85 cm height.

So – thank you for giving the Finnish photographer a nice venue/event to end the qualifying – hopefully will see you at EuroBasket in coming years – I will for sure see your youth teams in the Nordics early in the summer!

Next?

Qualifying over – and now bit of a break from International games, few domestic games to shoot between now and then – as well as couple of months of van life to live in Finland.

Then – in the autumn it is time for EuroBasket 2025!!