Estonia stun hosts Finland 3-2 in Tampere: the fifth set of an overlooked pool

I sat still for about ten seconds after the final whistle of the fifth set. 15-11 for Estonia. Nokia Arena in Tampere, where 9,813 Finnish fans had filled virtually every seat, suddenly held only the creak of plastic chairs and the footsteps of the ball boys. A 60-year-old fan can still run 100 metres after a winning point - that's me. But this time I stayed seated, because I was not in Tampere. I was in front of a screen in Hai Phong, watching an Estonian side long dismissed as a pool-stage also-ran overturn the hosts on their own floor, on a night Finland believed they would share the top of Pool C with Belgium.

Estonia won 3-2 (22-25, 25-21, 25-22, 20-25, 15-11). No scoreboard blinked for long. But the first "Eesti!" chant on Finnish soil in an official European Championship match - that is what makes you stay in your chair.

Context: a pool with no room for a stroll

Pool C was among the least regarded groups at the 2026 European Men's Volleyball Championship. This year's edition featured 24 teams in a pool stage feeding into the knockout rounds - a format that leaves no room for a leisurely match.

Before the ball was served in Tampere on Thursday evening, Belgium had already finished its work early with a 3-0 sweep of Serbia (25-19, 25-21, 25-16). Analysts like to call that a clean sweep. To me, looking back at Belgium's pool campaign, that is how a team announces its status without noise.

Finland entered the final pool match on 11 points, behind Belgium's 13. One win would give them back top spot in the pool - or at least a share of it. But volleyball does not play by the hosts' script. The match at Nokia Arena ended not only in a 3-2 win for Estonia, but also reshuffled the entire order of Pool C before the round of 16 began this weekend.

Final standings: Belgium 13 points, Finland 11, Serbia 7, Denmark 7, Estonia 5, Netherlands 2. Estonia finished second from bottom, yet had just claimed their second straight win of the tournament, after beating the Netherlands 3-1 (27-25, 25-22, 18-25, 25-23) days earlier.

The round of 16 starts Saturday in Sofia and Turin. Finland face Greece and Belgium meet Czechia, both on 20 and 21 September in Turin. Poland play Latvia and Germany face Bulgaria on 19 September in Sofia; Ukraine-Romania and France-Portugal follow there on 20 September. Slovenia meet Serbia in Turin on 21 September, and Italy face Denmark at the same time. Semi-finals and medal matches will be held in Milan.

The match: the fifth set and moments that cannot be copied

Finland started exactly as a host nation should. They took the opening set 25-22 as the Marttila brothers - Luka and Nooa - and Joonas Jokela kept finding gaps in Estonia's defence. In that set, Finland barely erred on the wing attack. When Jokela sent the ball into the gap between two blockers, Nokia Arena seemed to gain another layer of fire.

Estonia did not collapse the way many expected. In the second set, opposite Timo Andre Lohmus opened a 16-11 lead before closing it out 25-21. This is where I want to pause. There is a type of team in Europe forever cast as the underdog, and Estonia is one of them. When they win a set against the hosts, people say "just luck." But when Lohmus hits through Finland's two-man block at a moment when one small error would end the set, that is no longer luck.

The third set was the best of the match. Finland led, then Luka Marttila fired three straight aces to tie it at 19-19. I sat up straight when I rewatched the third one. Luka has a serve I call "the serve of a man with nothing to lose": hard, flat, drilled into the middle of the opponent's court. Three consecutive aces at that moment is the statement any host would want. But Estonia answered like a team that no longer fears anything: Lohmus delivered a decisive block for a 22-20 lead, and Estonia took the set 25-22.

In the fourth set, Finland all but gambled everything on a substitution. Niko Suihkonen came on for Nooa Marttila and scored seven points - no small number for a substitute in a decisive set. The 17-year-old's double at Lạch Tray years ago, I wrote that one in sweat rather than ink - and Suihkonen's seven points in the fourth gave me the same feeling. The hosts won 25-20, forcing a fifth set. Nokia Arena erupted. I remember that feeling. The kind of sound only a packed arena can make - not individual shouts, but a crowd resonating into a single roar.

Estonia did not fold. They entered the fifth set with the mindset of a team that had been at the bottom of the pool and had nothing left to lose. The result: 15-11.

The fifth set in volleyball is its own world. There is no long break, no chance to fix mistakes, only fifteen points to decide who goes home and who stays. In this one, Estonia served more safely, blocked more tightly and - most importantly - did not give away points. Finland, which had erupted in the fourth, suddenly played as if it had spent all its energy forcing the match to five. That is the trap many hosts fall into: they fight to survive to the fifth set, then have nothing left to fight with in the fifth.

Before the match, Olivia Kunnari - niece of Finland head coach Olli Kunnari - sang the national anthem. It is the small detail I always look for when writing about European tournaments: family threads woven into sport. As Olivia sang, Olli stood by the sideline. Nokia Arena held 9,813 people. Somewhere in a corner of the stands, I believe a woman was holding up a phone to record that moment for the family to watch again.

Joonas Jokela made his 100th appearance for Finland. One hundred caps. For a player of Jokela's age, that number is no longer a statistic - it is endurance measured in career years. And in the fifth set, when Finland needed someone to stand up, Jokela was still there, almost to the final minute.

The win over the Netherlands was the prelude to the win over Finland. In the fourth set of that match, at 22-22, Lohmus served twice in a row and both became aces. That is the kind of server I call "cold-handed": no emotion, only trajectory. If you follow European volleyball long enough, you notice Baltic teams share a trait - they do not have the biggest arena, they do not have the brightest star, but they have servers trained to an uncomfortable standard.

After the match, Lohmus said Estonia wanted badly to win again in front of the crowd and gave everything it had, adding that he was proud of his team. Finland captain Antti Ronkainen admitted Estonia played well and wanted the fifth set, fighting hard to the end, and said Finland now turns its attention to its next opponent. Two quotes, two states of mind. One side had just claimed its biggest win of the tournament. The other had just let an opportunity slip.

For Estonian volleyball, the win in Tampere was more than three points. It was a milestone. A country of fewer than 1.4 million people, long outside the big time of European men's volleyball, had just beaten the host nation on its own floor. Compare it with football or basketball and Estonia is nearly invisible. But in volleyball, they have a generation of players tough enough to earn the respect of the big sides. In a 24-team tournament where the gap between the top and the middle is narrowing, a win like this can be the seed of a new generation.

Contrarian angle: which number is lying?

Here I must say something that bothered me. Putting together the post-match material, I found two sources reporting different heroes for Estonia. Volleytimes reported Lohmus with 24 points and Teppan with 16. WorldofVolley reported the reverse: Teppan with 24, Lohmus with 16. Two sources, two different numbers for the same match.

In more than twenty years in this trade, I have learned one rule: when two sources disagree, the writer must say so. I do not pick a side. I only point out that Estonia's hero - whether his name is Lohmus or Teppan in the box score - had a match any team would need. And the fact that two major outlets covering an Estonia pool match disagreed on the individual points column says something about the attention paid to small teams. When you are Poland or France, people check the numbers three times. When you are Estonia, someone can get a number wrong and move on.

Pool C ended with Estonia fifth, ahead only of the Netherlands. Looking at the table, nobody would call Estonia a strong team. But volleyball is not decided by final pool position. It is decided by specific sets, at specific moments, before specific crowds. Estonia beat hosts Finland on their own court, in front of 9,813 people, in the fifth set. That is something the table cannot measure.

There is another angle worth pausing on. Belgium beat Serbia 3-0 early in the day. That result left Finland with no other path than to beat Estonia to claim top spot. When a host knows it must win, the pressure shifts from "can" to "must." In volleyball, "must" is a toxic word. Estonia - a team with nothing left to play for - played with a freedom Finland did not have. That is not luck. That is competitive psychology in the right dose.

If I had been running the livestream that night alongside three former national players for more than 5,000 viewers, I would have had to say one thing: the team that wins is not the one that plays better, but the one that fears less. At 60, I still think I am the girl jumping up and down in the stands at Lạch Tray - except now I jump inside my head while my hands type.

This year's round of 16 has one notable feature: no team gets a bye. Belgium - Pool C winners - face Czechia. Finland - who just lost top spot - face Greece. Poland play Latvia, Germany face Bulgaria, France meet Portugal. In Turin, Slovenia face Serbia, Italy face Denmark. Looking at the bracket, the organisers clearly arranged for the semi-finals and final in Milan to gather the strongest teams - but this is volleyball, and in volleyball no bracket is easy.

Conclusion

European volleyball in 2026 no longer has room for teams taking a stroll through the pool stage. A side second from bottom of Pool C just knocked over the hosts at their own fortress, and a pool leader settled for second place. Next week, in Sofia and Turin, the round of 16 begins. Estonia closed its pool chapter with a win. Finland opens the next chapter with an open question: does it still have enough belief to rise against Greece in Turin, or will Nokia Arena remain the haunting name of a season dropped?