TSB Guide to Gjanni Alioski asking Aapo Halme if he’s nervous - The Square Ball 11/8/22
INTIMIDATING VOICE
Written by: Rob Conlon
When Aapo Halme left Leeds United for Barnsley in summer
2019, he posted a perfectly respectable goodbye on Instagram:
‘I would like to thank @leedsunited for welcoming me to
English football giving me my debut and welcoming me to this historic football
club.
‘Above all I would like to thank all the fans for all the
support during my time at Leeds. I wish the club all the best for the future.’
It was in keeping with the little we knew about Halme. Five
appearances as emergency cover during Marcelo Bielsa’s first season didn’t tell
us much about his ability as a defender, let alone his personality. There were
only two things we knew for certain about Aapo Halme: he’s big, 6ft 5in, and
not afraid to show it; and he has the earnest face of a kind boy scout. I am
using that Instagram post as proof his character is reflective of his
appearance.
Gjanni Alioski does not have a kind, earnest face. He has a
face full of mischief. Smirking, winking, wailing. So when Aapo was waiting to
play for Barnsley against Leeds a month into the new season, standing in the
tunnel just wanting to keep his head down and concentrate on the upcoming game,
Alioski was not going to let his old friend off for not saying hello.
It started off so well for Halme, getting a high five from
Leeds coach Diego Flores. That was the first mistake. Halme let his guard down.
I wonder if Flores played an unwitting role in Aapo’s subsequent embarrassment,
or whether he was in on Alioski’s cunning all along. I suspect Gjanni’s madness
is too freeform to trust anyone else to keep up.
The question remains so cutting. “Aapo, are you nervous?”
What could Aapo have said in response? Gjanni is showing
compassion for his former teammate, and if Halme told him to fuck off that’s
exactly what a nervous person would say. But he couldn’t say how he really felt
either: ‘Yes, this is a very big day in my career, I want to prove a point to
my old club, so I am a bit nervous.’ The last thing he needed was Jackie
laughing, and Gjanni telling Barnsley’s Dimitri Cavare that his friend won’t
say hello, and even Kiko Casilla having the brass neck to laugh at a nervous
defender. There’s no coming back from that. Alioski has always been smarter
than he lets on.
Halme did the best he could before escaping to the pitch. He
dealt with the ordeal better than some Barnsley fans. A poster called Young
Nudger opened a thread on a Barnsley forum, titled ‘Anyone seen the Alioski
video in the Barnsley tunnel ???’:
‘He’s trying his best to embarrass (bully) Aapo Halme in the
tunnel walking out onto the pitch.
‘He can be heard saying in an intimidating voice to Halme –
‘why you not say hello, are you nervous !?!?!’
‘That’s a 27 year old long established footballer trying to
undermine a young 21 year old footballer who has only played a couple of times
for his new club.
‘The white shi.te fans on Twitter think it’s ‘hilarious’.
And then they wonder why they are the most hated club in
English football.’
It was the perfect way for Alioski to celebrate a century of
appearances for Leeds United.
Was Aapo nervous?
His team didn’t look nervous. Fellow ex-Leeds players Alex
Mowatt and Malik Wilks both threatened. Halme was playing well, frustrating
Leeds’ attacks and causing problems at set-pieces. But then Bielsa brought on
Eddie Nketiah for Pat Bamford, and things started to go wrong.
From a Barnsley corner, the ball deflected to Halme a couple
of yards from goal. Rather than put it in the net, he became part of an
exclusive group of Championship players who couldn’t score past Kiko Casilla.
An offside flag made it slightly less embarrassing.
Nketiah soon put Leeds in front, cushioning in Kalvin
Phillips’ free-kick, but Halme could have equalised from a corner, heading
narrowly over. He compounded the mistake by kicking Nketiah over in the box,
conceding a penalty. Mateusz Klich looked to the right, sending the ‘keeper
diving along his eyeline, and gently rolled the ball to the left.
Klich definitely wasn’t nervous. I do not have the same
certainty about Halme.
Did he get over his nerves?
Yes! Playing in a rubbish Barnsley team didn’t help, but by
the end of the season Halme was a regular, occasionally moving forward into
midfield and scoring a few goals. On the same night Leeds lifted the
Championship trophy, Barnsley scored a stoppage-time winner at Griffin Park,
staying up on the last day of the season and ruining Brentford’s dream of going
up automatically in one heartbreaking swoop. Everyone’s a winner!
Since then, it hasn’t been so fun for Aapo. Injuries meant
he couldn’t build on his first year with Barnsley. He played only six times
last season as they were relegated to League One, and was released at the end
of his contract.
He has rocked back up at HJK Helsinki, the club Leeds signed
him from, in what is also known as the career path of Seb Sorsa.
Just how kind is his face?
Aapo Halme is the most relatable footballer I’ve ever seen #lufc pic.twitter.com/wlOKb5JmIH
— Ben Machell (@ben_machell) January 6, 2019
