Estonia beats Finland 3-2 in Tampere: a win on court, and two stat sheets that refuse to match

Timo Andre Lohmus's block at 11-11 in the fifth set cracked through Nokia Arena like a slamming door. The 9,813 Finnish fans sat down. Estonia closed it out at 15-11, winning 3-2 (22-25, 25-21, 25-22, 20-25, 15-11), and the Pool C top spot the hosts had waited for turned into second place.

What I carried out of Tampere, though, sat somewhere else: two stat sheets that refused to match.

Twelve hours after the final whistle, I reopened the databases I always use for cross-checking. Volleytimes.com credited Lohmus with 24 points and Teppan with 16. WorldofVolley credited Teppan with 24 and Lohmus with 16. The two numbers had swapped places. Same match, same night, same tournament. And yet nobody could agree on who scored the most points in the match that closed the group stage.

In eighteen years on the job, I have learned one thing: when the data does not match, the real story lives in the gap between the numbers. And in Tampere, that gap was wider than a net block.

The group stage closed on a night with two fate-shaping matches

The 2026 European Men's Volleyball Championship brings together 24 teams, and Pool C was one of the clearest groups on paper. On the day Estonia stunned Tampere, Belgium had already sealed first place with a 3-0 sweep of Serbia (25-19, 25-21, 25-16). That was a match with nothing left to debate: Belgium controlled it from start to finish, and that result turned Finland-Estonia into a fight for second.

Pool C closed in this order: Belgium 13 points, Finland 11, Serbia 7, Denmark 7, Estonia 5, Netherlands 2.

Read that table and the paradox jumps out. Estonia had just beaten the host, had just created one of the upsets of the group stage, and still finished fifth, ahead of only the Netherlands. A win over Finland was not enough to lift Estonia out of the lower half. Because before it, this Baltic side had lost three matches and only earned its first win of the tournament by beating the Netherlands 3-1 (27-25, 25-22, 18-25, 25-23).

In other words: Estonia came to Tampere as a team with almost nothing left to play for, and left with two straight wins and 5 points. That is a journey, not a moment.

| Team | Points | Consequence | |------|--------|-------------| | Belgium | 13 | Group winner, faces Czechia in the round of 16 | | Finland | 11 | Group runner-up, faces Greece | | Serbia | 7 | Faces Slovenia in Turin | | Denmark | 7 | Faces Italy | | Estonia | 5 | Eliminated | | Netherlands | 2 | Eliminated |

Set one: Finland opened with the rallies everyone expected

Finland took the opening set 25-22. It was not a set the hosts played brilliantly; it was a set they played exactly as everyone expected. The Marttila brothers, Luka and Nooa, along with Joonas Jokela, kept finding gaps in Estonia's defence. Cross-court balls, spikes from position four, quick combinations with the second-touch ball: all of it aimed at a weakness that had been predicted, namely Estonia's ability to move its block when the opponent keeps a fast tempo.

Joonas Jokela was especially notable in this set, because the match marked his 100th appearance for Finland. A round milestone, on an evening when he had every reason to play his most confident volleyball.

But there was one small detail I noted: in set one, Estonia still stayed within touching distance until mid-set. They lost on the closing points, not because they were overwhelmed. Teams that lose on closing points usually produce a very different second set.

Set two: Lohmus opens the door and Estonia walks through

Estonia won the second set 25-21, and the mark of it was Timo Andre Lohmus. He pushed the lead to 16-11, a margin that at this level almost equals closing out a set. The change was not in the attack; it was in the serve. Estonia raised its serving pressure, pushed Finland off the net, and once the opponent had to hit balls outside the system, Estonia's block had time to set up.

Based on my experience covering matches at European tournaments, I have noticed a pattern: on teams that are underestimated, the serve is the only weapon they can control. Estonia did not have Finland's depth or Belgium's uniform height, but they had one tactical choice, to serve risky and accept the downside. Set two was when that choice was executed.

Set three: Luka Marttila's three serves and the decisive block

Set three was the best of the match. Finland, after losing set two, funnelled the ball to Luka Marttila. Mid-set, he fired three straight serves, three aces, to tie it at 19-19. Nokia Arena erupted. It was the kind of moment when a host team can turn a whole match.

And then Lohmus blocked at 22-20.

That block was not about power; it was about the moment a team decides it is no longer afraid. When Finland levelled and the stands rose, the most likely outcome was Estonia collapsing. They did not collapse. They blocked, scored, and closed the set 25-22.

I rewatched Marttila's three serves several times. All three landed in the serving zone Estonia had exposed in set one. The point is not that Estonia suddenly defended better; the point is that they learned they could not let Finland hold the tempo. Volleyball at this level is not a contest of who hits harder, but of who controls the other's rhythm.

| Set | Finland | Estonia | Highlight | |-----|---------|---------|-----------| | 1 | 25 | 22 | Jokela and the Marttila brothers exploit Estonia's defence | | 2 | 21 | 25 | Lohmus builds a 16-11 lead | | 3 | 22 | 25 | Marttila's 3 aces tie it 19-19; Lohmus blocks for 22-20 | | 4 | 25 | 20 | Suihkonen comes on, scores 7 points | | 5 | 11 | 15 | Estonia closes on a four-point run |

Set four: Niko Suihkonen and the substitution decision

Finland refused to fold. The home coach replaced Nooa Marttila with Niko Suihkonen, and the substitute scored seven points, helping Finland take set four 25-20 and force a fifth set.

This was the substitution most worth analysing. Suihkonen came on for one of the two Marttila brothers, a player who had performed well in set one, and immediately created a new source of points. In volleyball, a substitute scoring seven points in one set is a very high number. It showed Finland had more than one attacking option; they had depth.

But that depth became a double-edged sword in the fifth set.

Set five: where depth stops mattering

Estonia won the tie-break 15-11. In a fifth set, all the advantages of roster, of depth, of the home crowd, compress into a single question: who keeps a cool head across fifteen points. Estonia answered that question with Lohmus's block at 11-11 and four points after it.

What is interesting is that in the fifth set, Finland no longer used Suihkonen the way it had in the fourth. The personnel change had brought points, but it also broke the combination rhythm the hosts had built across the match. In the last fifteen points, the familiarity between setter and key hitters mattered more than any new source of points.

This is what a stat sheet never records: the cost of a change.

How Estonia got to Tampere in the first place

To understand why Estonia could win in Tampere, you have to look back a few days, to when they beat the Netherlands 3-1 (27-25, 25-22, 18-25, 25-23). In the fourth set of that match, at 22-22, Lohmus fired two straight serves and swung the balance. It was Estonia's first win of the tournament, and it arrived the same way the Finland win would: by serve, by points at the final moments.

When a team wins two straight matches with the same formula, it is no longer luck. It is a repeatedly chosen tactic. Estonia has no continental-class star. They have an opposite hitter who can serve at a pressure-raising level, and a system that knows how to exploit the moment an opponent loses rhythm.

Two stat sheets, and a question about belief

Back to Lohmus and Teppan.

Volleytimes.com credited Lohmus with 24 points and Teppan with 16. WorldofVolley credited Teppan with 24 and Lohmus with 16. I had no access to the full match footage alongside the organiser's official scoresheet, so I cannot conclude who is right. But I can say this: the inconsistency is no small matter.

In a match Estonia won on a Lohmus moment, determining who scored the most points matters to the story the media tells. If Lohmus scored 24, the story is that Estonia's star shone at the right time. If Teppan scored 24, the story is that Estonia won as a collective, with Lohmus merely the one who closed it out. Two entirely different stories, built on two numbers that swapped places.

Investigating these two sheets did not cost me sleep. It made me ask which number I had believed, and why.

I once spent three weeks rewatching all the footage of a young athlete, just to prove a technical detail others had dismissed was real. I believe in data. But I also know data is made by people, and people can err, can rush, can miswrite a name. That is why I always build my own tables for every analysis. Not because I trust no one, but because I want readers to see the origin of each number.

The contrary angle: the upset was not in the scoreline

The media called this match an upset. Estonia beat the host Finland, at Nokia Arena, in front of 9,813 fans. That sounds reasonable.

But the structure of the tournament tells a different story. Estonia left with 5 points, fifth of six teams. Finland still advanced to the round of 16 as group runner-up, to face Greece. Belgium, the group winner, had 13 points, eight more than Estonia. Structurally, Estonia's win changed nothing significant in the fate of the tournament.

So where was the upset? It was in our expectations, not in the reality of the tournament. We call it an upset because we assume the host must win. But volleyball at this level does not run on assumptions. Estonia had beaten the Netherlands before this, and a team winning two straight at a European Championship is not an accident.

I do not want to deny the value of that win. I only want to say that the label of upset tends to hide what is truly worth saying: Estonia played a better tournament than their final position suggests.

One evening in Tampere

There is a detail the reports rarely mention. Before the match, Olivia Kunnari, niece of Finland head coach Olli Kunnari, sang the national anthem. It was a family moment on a night when sport had split the stands in two.

I thought about that detail while rewatching the footage. After the match, Lohmus said Estonia badly wanted to win again in front of the crowd and gave everything it had, and that he was proud of his team. Finland captain Antti Ronkainen said Estonia played well, wanted the fifth set, and fought hard to the end, and that Finland now turns its attention to its next opponent.

The two statements matched each other surprisingly well. No one looked for blame. No one invoked luck or refereeing. In a world where defeat is usually explained by external causes, both teams acknowledging the opponent was better that night is a rare thing.

The round of 16 and what lies ahead

The round of 16 begins on Saturday, 19 September 2026, in Sofia and Turin. Finland faces Greece and Belgium meets Czechia, both matches on 20 and 21 September in Turin. In Sofia, Poland plays Latvia and Germany faces Bulgaria on 19 September; Ukraine-Romania and France-Portugal follow there on 20 September. Slovenia meets Serbia in Turin on 21 September, while Italy faces Denmark the same weekend. The semifinals and medal matches will be held in Milan.

Estonia does not appear on that list. They left with two wins and a fifth-place finish.

For a team that lost its first three matches, two wins at the end is a signal. Not the signal of a champion, but the signal of a team that has found its own way to play. In European volleyball, where the gap between the top and bottom tiers keeps narrowing, signals like that deserve to be recorded.

What remains after the whistle

I still do not know who scored 24 points in Tampere. I may never know for certain, unless I can see the original evidence. But perhaps that matters less than how I pose the question.

Every scoresheet hides a story. I am only the one who bends down to read it. And sometimes the real story is not in the final number, but in the place where two numbers refuse to meet.

Estonia won a match they were said to have no chance of winning. But they lost the tournament. Both things are true, and both sit in the same standings table. That is what sport keeps teaching me: a moment and a journey never tell the same story.

I have learned that a win can be forgotten. But how a team played, and for what, cannot.