August 21 2002

Aki Riihilahti

Three Palace players were on losing sides on Wednesday evening.

Aki Riihilahti played half an hour of Finland's home match against the Republic of Ireland. He came on after 60 minutes, replacing Bayer Leverkusen's Hannu Tihinen.

Riihilahti and his teammates couldn't stop a strong Ireland side though, losing out 3-0. It was Finland's first home defeat in almost 3 years.

It was reported that Riihilahti was carrying an ankle knock, before the start of the game - thus the reason for him not starting the game.

Alex Kolinko and Andrejs Rubins played in Latvia's 4-2 loss to Belarus. Rubins failed to get on the scoresheet.