Lassi Lappalainen

Lassi Roni Kasperi Lappalainen (born 24 August 1998) is a Finnish professional footballer who plays as a winger for Major League Soccer club CF Montréal.

Early career
Born in Espoo in 1998, Lappalainen started his football career with Espoon Palloseura (EPS) and later moved to HJK youth team. Lappalainen played in Klubi 04, the reserve team of HJK.

HJK
In 2016, Lappalainen was called up for HJK's first team. On 2 April 2016, he made his Veikkausliiga debut against IFK Mariehamn at Sonera Stadium, being substituted on by coach Mika Lehkosuo in place of Nnamdi Oduamadi in the 90th minute. Lappalainen also represented HJK youth in UEFA Youth League twice, in 2015–16 and 2016–17.

RoPS (loan)
On 21 July 2017, Lappalainen was loaned to RoPS for remainder of the Veikkausliiga season. Two days later, he scored his first league goal for RoPS just five minutes into his debut after coming on as a substitute.

Bologna
On 19 July 2019, Lappalainen signed to Italian Serie A club Bologna. HJK Helsinki stated it received "significant compensation" and that economically, the transfer was in the "top 7 of HJK's club history". The transfer fee was later reported to be €700.000.

Montreal
On 25 July 2019, it was announced that Lappalainen was loaned to Major League Soccer (MLS) club Montreal Impact, later renamed as CF Montréal, for the remainder of the 2019 season using $180,000 of the Targeted Allocation Money. The Impact have options to extend the loan until 30 June 2020, as well as until 31 December 2020. On 27 July 2019, he contributed two goals to Montreal Impact's 4–0 victory over the first-place Philadelphia Union on his MLS debut.

On 3 December 2021, Lappalainen's move to Montréal was made permanent, on a deal until the end of 2024, with an option to extend it.

International career
Lappalainen made his debut for the Finland national team on 8 January 2019 in a friendly against Sweden, as a starter.

Lappalainen was called up for the UEFA Euro 2020 pre-tournament friendly match against Sweden on 29 May 2021.

Honours
Montreal Impact
 * Canadian Championship: 2019 2021