FC Lahti

Football club infobox
clubname = FC Lahti

| fullname = Football Club Lahti
nickname = "Mustat kuhnurit" (the Black Drones)
founded = 1996
ground = Lahden Stadion, Lahti
capacity = 15,000
chairman = Urpo Karjalainen
manager = Ilkka Mäkelä
league = Veikkausliiga
season = 2007
position = Veikkausliiga, 8th
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pattern_la2=|pattern_b2=|pattern_ra2=
leftarm2=CC0000|body2=CC0000|rightarm2=CC0000|shorts2=CC0000|socks2=CC0000

Football Club Lahti is a Finnish football club, based in the town of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish Premier Division ("Veikkausliiga"). The homeground of FC Lahti is Lahden Stadion.

History

FC Lahti was founded in 1996 when two time-honoured archrival clubs from Lahti - FC Kuusysi and Reipas - decided to end their time in Finnish top-football and create a new club to make people of Lahti proud. Also the reserve club FC Pallo-Lahti was formed, but it was closed down after a couple of seasons due to economic difficulties. Both Reipas and Kuusysi controlled the junior section of the club.

FC Lahti played its first season, 1997, in the southern group of Ykkönen, the second tier of Finnish football. It finished second in the first half of the split league format type league system, but was placed third in the final half behind FC Haka and PK-35 which were promoted to Veikkausliiga. The next season, 1998, was victorious and FC Lahti finally gained promotion to the highest tier and has not been relegated since.

In the premier division Lahti hasn't achieved as much as Kuusysi and Reipas did. The best position in the final table of the history is fifth at the end of the 2003 season. In 2007 Lahti won the Finnish League Cup.

Current squad

Notable players

*flagicon|FIN Jari Litmanen
*flagicon|FIN Petri Pasanen
*flagicon|FIN Mika Väyrynen
*flagicon|FIN Petri Tiainen
*flagicon|FIN Pekka Lagerblom
*flagicon|FIN Njazi Kuqi
*flagicon|FIN Tuomas Haapala
*flagicon|POL Michał Sławuta
*flagicon|EST Marko Kristal
*flagicon|EST Indrek Zelinski

External links

*fi icon [http://www.fclahti.fi/ Official website]
*fi icon [http://lahtifutis.net/ LahtiFutis.net]