Northern Ireland and Finland played out an entertaining 3-3 draw in their friendly international at Windsor Park in Belfast this evening.
In what turned out to be a lively first game of football, it was Northern Ireland who took the lead after just seven minutes.
Shane Ferguson was released by Dean Shiels and his shot from just inside the penalty area found the top-left corner of the goal.
The hosts went 2-0 up in the 19th minute when Kyle Lafferty turned home Shiels' cross from close range.
However, any hopes of a Northern Ireland rout were quickly extinguished, as Finland scored twice in two minutes.
First, Kari Arkivuo's cross was turned in by Tim Sparv from deep inside the penalty box in the 22nd minute, and then on 24 minutes Teemu Pukki found the target from close range to make it 2-2.
It stayed that way until the break and like in the first half, Northern Ireland were quicker than Finland to get out of the blocks in the second period.
Shiels could have made it 3-2 to the hosts had his close-range effort on 46 minutes not narrowly missed the target.
Three minutes later Lafferty's left-footed shot from the left side was saved by Niki Maenpaa.
Michael O'Neill's side continued to press forward in search of their third goal and created a number of chances, but failed to make them count.
Then in the 77th minute Finland found the breakthrough when Perparim Hetemaj scored from a free kick.
The flurry of goals continued in the 83rd minute, when the home side were awarded a penalty for Joona Toivio's foul on Martin Paterson.
Paterson converted the spot kick with ease to make it 3-3 for Northern Ireland, and the scoreline stayed that way until the full-time whistle.
Subhankar Mondal
