Maajoukkuepelaajat ulkomailla - Miia Anjala in UK

Coming to play for Finland has been an amazing experience. At first, it was a little bit hard because I didn’t know any of the other girls, have never trained with them I speak very basic Finnish it was hard for me to communicate with them, both in the water and out. However the more I’ve practiced with them, I got to know them more and everyone is so welcoming. It’s also a great experience playing with new players, there’s some differences from my club team in London and the national team and everyone has different skills so it’s really fun learning and developing with each other.

The biggest challenge is definitely the language barrier. I speak extremely basic Finnish, if any and so I often don’t understand things like instructions, tactics and jokes from the players and coaches. Everyone is super welcoming though, most people speak english and so they can translate for me and it’s really nice speaking to them. The most rewarding part of playing on this team is getting to know everyone. I know my team at home really well so it’s nice meeting new faces and learning everyone’s techniques and strengths. 

At my home team, training requires a lot of discipline. During season, I train usually 5-6 times a week. Training is from 7/7:30 to 9:30 every night. From January to April, there’s games and tournaments just about every weekend so we have to do a lot of training during the week. My club participates in a lot of different tournaments and leagues, and I’m also in a couple regional teams so there’s a lot of games to play.

So far, my biggest achievement in waterpolo has been winning the Under 18 National Conference League with my team. That tournament had 8 different teams, playing each team once then the final 4 to determine the winner. I helped my team win first place and that was probably one of the biggest achievements. 

Since I was really young, I’ve taken swimming lessons and eventually I joined a swim team. I have hyper mobility, so running and jumping have always been difficult as it hurts my joints, stopping me from playing sports like Football or Volleyball. Then in 2022, I went on holiday to Hawaii and I had a lot of fun throwing a ball around with my cousins in the pool and my parents decided to put me into waterpolo. Ever since then, I’ve stuck with it and come to really enjoy it. I loved my team and it was really fun to play and I’ve become much more serious about playing, starting late 2023. To any other girls thinking of playing the sport, I’d say to try it. You never know what could happen, you might end up liking it and being good at it. It takes a lot of discipline and practice, experience is one of the most valuable things you need to play. Starting is just the first step.