Ilves
Also written as Ilves Tampere.
The club
Tampereen Ilves are a Finnish club from Tampere. Ilves is Finnish for lynx, and the club is nicknamed Ipa. The football section was founded in 1931 and played its first matches the following year, but it has been abandoned and restarted more than once. Football was dropped in 1938 so the club could concentrate on ice hockey, revived during the Second World War, dropped again after a failed promotion push in 1947, and only became permanent after Ilves merged with Tampellan Palloilijat and Ilves-Kissat in 1974, inheriting the latter's place in the second tier along with its debts.
The colours are green and yellow, usually a yellow shirt with green shorts, with an all-green change kit. The first shirt was green and black stripes, occasionally revived. In 1992 and 1993 the club played in red at a sponsor's insistence, which supporters hated. The badge, a lynx, was designed by Rauno Broms in 1962.
The home ground is the Tammelan Stadion, capacity 8,000, rebuilt on the site of the old Tammela ground and reopened for the 2024 season. Between 2020 and 2023 Ilves played at the much larger Tampere Stadium, where the running track and the empty seats did the atmosphere no favours. The chairman is Petri Ojala and the head coach is Camilo Speranza, appointed in 2026 after Joni Lehtonen and, before him, Joonas Rantanen.
Recent seasons
Ilves were ninth in the Veikkausliiga in 2022 and eighth in 2023, then won the Finnish Cup that year and, with the new stadium open and the ice hockey side of the club providing financial backing, finished second in 2024. In 2025 they were third, 60 points from 32 matches across the regular season and championship round, 18 wins, 6 draws and 8 defeats, 68 goals scored and 45 conceded, behind champions KuPS and Inter Turku.
2026 has been a struggle. As of 9 August 2026 Ilves were ninth of twelve in the regular season with 25 points from 19 matches, 7 wins, 4 draws and 8 defeats, 31 goals scored and 31 conceded. KuPS and Inter Turku were again setting the pace.
Honours and landmarks
Finnish champions once, in 1983, and runners-up in 1985 and 2024. Finnish Cup winners four times, in 1979, 1990, 2019 and 2023. The 1979 cup win, against TPS in Ilves's first season in the top flight, was the club's first major trophy and took them into Europe.
The club's record attendance is 24,073, set at the Tampere Stadium for the visit of Juventus in the 1984-85 European Cup.
Notable scorelines
Ilves lost 4-0 away to Rangers in the 1986-87 UEFA Cup first round and then won the home leg 2-0, their first European win on their own ground, though Rangers went through 4-2. Juventus beat them 4-0 in Turin and 2-1 in Tampere on the way to winning the 1984-85 European Cup. The heaviest European defeat of recent times is 6-0 at home to Shakhtar Donetsk in the first leg of the 2025/26 Europa League first qualifying round, after which Ilves held Shakhtar to a goalless draw in the return. The longest shootout in the club's history came in the 2020/21 Europa League first qualifying round: a single-leg tie against Shamrock Rovers finished 2-2 and Rovers won the penalties 12-11 after thirteen kicks each.
Ilves's all-time record domestic win and defeat were not established from the sources read here.
European record
Ilves first played in Europe in the 1980-81 Cup Winners' Cup and lost 7-3 on aggregate to Feyenoord. Juventus followed in 1984-85 and Rangers in 1986-87. The best of the early campaigns was 1991-92, when Ilves went past Glenavon on away goals after a 4-4 aggregate, then held Roma to a 1-1 draw in Tampere before losing 5-2 in Italy.
There was then a gap of 27 years. Slavia Sofia beat them 3-1 in the 2018/19 Europa League first qualifying round and Shamrock Rovers went through on penalties in 2020/21.
The 2024/25 Conference League produced the club's best modern run. Ilves beat Austria Wien in the second qualifying round, 2-1 at home and 4-3 down after extra time away, going through 5-4 on penalties, and then lost the third qualifying round to Djurgården, 1-1 at home and 3-1 in Sweden.
In 2025/26 they were beaten 6-0 by Shakhtar Donetsk in the Europa League, then dropped into the Conference League and beat AZ Alkmaar 4-3 at home before losing 5-0 in the Netherlands, out 8-4.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here. Croatian reports of the Rijeka first leg carry comments attributed to Camilo Speranza, but those pages could not be read directly and the exact published wording is not reproduced.
Right now (2026/27)
Camilo Speranza is the head coach. Ilves entered the Conference League and have come through two rounds already.
In the first qualifying round they drew 0-0 away to Differdange 03 of Luxembourg on 8 July 2026 and won the home leg 3-1 on 16 July in front of 4,009, through 3-1 on aggregate. In the second qualifying round they lost 1-0 away to Stjarnan of Iceland on 23 July, won 2-1 after extra time at home on 30 July in front of 4,201, and went through 5-4 on penalties after a 2-2 aggregate.
The tie they are in now is the Conference League third qualifying round against Rijeka of Croatia, and Ilves lost the first leg 1-0 at the Stadion Rujevica on 6 August 2026. Niko Jankovic scored in the 16th minute in front of 5,268 and the score did not change. The referee was Ishmael Barbara of Malta.
The second leg is at the Tammelan Stadion on 13 August 2026, referee Genc Nuza of Kosovo. One goal is the whole deficit. The winner meets the winner of Bohemians against Midtjylland in the play-off round on 20 and 27 August.
Summer transfer business at Ilves was not established from the sources read here and no signings or departures are claimed. The squad as of 6 August 2026 included the Finland internationals Sauli Väisänen, Joona Veteli, Lauri Ala-Myllymäki and Roope Riski, with Tatu Miettunen as captain.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilves_(football) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Veikkausliiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Veikkausliiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying_(first_and_second_round_matches) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying_(third_and_play-off_round_matches) https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/match/2049173 https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/match/2049203
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.