HJK U19 ran out 6-0 winners against Balkani U19 in the UEFA Youth League quarter-finals on 16 September 2026. The Finnish side made no mistake in front of their home crowd, scoring at regular intervals throughout the half. Three goals came from A. Haikala alone, while N. Kroupkin, J. De Nascimento and A. Zaitra each added one.
Haikala opened the scoring in the seventeenth minute, a simple finish that settled any nerves early on. Balkani responded with aggression rather than creativity, and R. Barrett picked up a yellow card eight minutes later. Kroupkin doubled the lead before the break, capitalising on a momentary lapse in concentration from the visitors' defence.
And here's the thing about matches like this — the momentum never really shifts once a team goes two clear. Haikala struck again in the forty-ninth minute, just after the break, and then completed his hat-trick four minutes later. De Nascimento added a fourth in the fifty-sixth minute, and the game had become a formality by then.
Balkani made changes in a desperate attempt to regain some control. A. Osmani came on in the fifty-fourth minute, followed by three more substitutions in the fifty-sixth minute alone. The visitors couldn't find a foothold, and HJK scored a fifth when A. Zaitra finished in the eighty-third minute.
The visitors made three more changes in the eighty-sixth minute, all at once, but it was too little too late. HJK U19 had shown they were the better side from the first whistle, and the result reflected that. Balkani's recent form offered no warning of what was to come — they had drawn with Manchester City U19 but lost 6-1 to PSG U19 earlier in the year.