Juha Malinen (born 16 July 1958) is a Finnish football coach with a total of 15 seasons at the highest level. Malinen manages the Finland under-21 national team. Managerial career Malinen was born in Oulu. He was coming to the end of his short career as a football player in 1978 when he decided to enroll as a student at the University of Oulu Department of Education. He started his career as a teacher just before he would have graduated, and thus didn't complete his studies. While working as a teacher he found himself yearning for a job where he could see more concretely the impact of his work. He soon became interested in football coaching. In 1986 Malinen found a job at Kastelli Sports Gymnasium (secondary education) as the school's football coach. Among his students at Kastelli were Antti Niemi and Mika Nurmela who went on to become Finnish internationals. Ville Nylund and Aarno Turpeinen, who later became core players of top team in Finland, HJK Helsinki, were also at Kastelli. Besides coaching at Kastelli, Malinen taught sports and crafts at a nearby school for hearing-impaired persons. The Kastelli football team was unexpectedly successful in 1989 when it qualified for the School World Championships 1989, held in Florence, Italy. Malinen's "brickwall" -tactic was a good match with inexperienced Finns, which didn't lose any games, but were still knocked out in second stage by France (Auxerre academy) with penalties. France became the champions and Kastelli finished in 5th place. It was this tournament, where Malinen first gained reputation and proved to himself that he could lead a successful career as a football manager. After Kastelli, Malinen was hired as a manager of Rauman Pallo. During his time at Rauma, he became full-time football manager. Two players from Kastelli, Antti Niemi and Mika Nurmela followed Malinen to Rauman Pallo. U15 and U16 national teams In summer 1990 Malinen was made U15 and U16 national team manager by Finnish FA. He led his team in 1991 and 1992 European Championships. After about four years of coaching the national teams Malinen wanted to get back into more rapid life of club football. Shows promise in Premier League He returned to his hometown Oulu and FC Oulu, which did get promoted next year. Besides being promoted, the club was hampered by financial difficulties, so Malinen went to TPS. With surprising Finnish Cup win in