Jalmari Holopainen

Jalmari Holopainen played as a defender for HJK in Helsinki. With this club he won the Finnish championship four times, in 1911, 1912, 1917, and 1918. He was nicknamed “Black Jallu” referring to his dark hair.

At the 1912 Olympic Games, Holopainen played in all four games for the Finnish team. They defeated Italy (in overtime) and Russia in the first two rounds, but had no chance against England in the semifinal and the Netherlands in the bronze medal match. Against England, he achieved dubious fame by scoring the first own goal in the history of official national team tournaments. Officially, however, the goal was eventually attributed to English player Howard Walden. In total, Holopainen played six international matches, which were also Finland’s first international matches ever.

Holopainen graduated from the Agricultural Lyceum in Helsinki. Later he moved to moved to Karelia and took up a position as a village headman. Here, he continued to play football for Viipurin Reipas for a few years. Holopainen worked as a freight forwarder for a total of 14 years and then became deputy director of the transport office of Valio Ltd, a major Finnish manufacturer of dairy products in the country. His wife was Enni Alviina (née Poutanen); they married in 1916.