Learn Hardcore Finnish: Turnauksen voitto meni joukkueelle, joka teki enemmän maaleja. - The tournament’s victory went to the team that scored more goals.

Even though in English we might say “the tournament was won by…”, Finnish often packages it as “the tournament’s victory” and treats voitto as the grammatical subject.

Which word is the subject of the sentence: turnauksen or voitto?

The grammatical subject is voitto.

voitto is in the nominative → that is the typical form of a subject.
turnauksen is in the genitive and functions as a possessor / attribute modifying voitto.

So structurally it is like:

Turnauksen (of the tournament) voitto (the victory) meni (went) …

The thing that went is voitto (the victory), not turnaus (the tournament).

Why does the sentence use meni (went) instead of a verb meaning “won”, like voitti?

Finnish often uses the construction:

Voitto menee jollekin = The victory goes to someone

This is a natural idiomatic way to say “someone wins” in Finnish, especially in sports contexts.

So:

Turnauksen voitto meni joukkueelle
literally: “The tournament’s victory went to the team”
natural English: “The team won the tournament” / “The tournament was won by the team”.

You could also say:

Turnauksen voitti joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja.
= “The tournament was won by the team that scored more goals.”

Both are correct; they just choose a different grammatical subject:

In the original, voitto (victory) is the subject.
In the alternative, joukkue (team) is the subject (voitti = won [something]).

What case is joukkueelle, and what does it express here?

Joukkueelle is in the allative case (ending -lle).

The allative typically means:

onto / to / toward / for something.

Here it expresses the recipient of the victory:

joukkueelle = to the team

So:

voitto meni joukkueelle
literally: “the victory went to the team”
meaning: “the team got the victory / the team won.”

Why is there a comma before joka teki enemmän maaleja?

The comma marks the start of a relative clause introduced by joka.

joka teki enemmän maaleja = who/that scored more goals

In Finnish, non‑restrictive relative clauses (giving extra information, like “by the way, this team is the one that …”) are usually separated with a comma, much like in English:

joukkueelle, joka teki…
= “to the team, which scored…”

You can read it as:

The tournament’s victory went to the team – the one that scored more goals.

What does joka refer to, and why is it in that form?

Joka is a relative pronoun (who/which/that). Here:

It refers back to joukkueelle / joukkue (the team).
It is in the nominative singular because it is the subject of the verb teki in the relative clause.

Inside the clause:

(Se joukkue,) joka teki enemmän maaleja
= (The team) that scored more goals

Other forms of joka appear when needed by grammar, e.g.:

jonka (genitive: whose / of which)
jota (partitive: which / that [object])

But here the pronoun is simply the subject “that/who”, so nominative joka is used.

Why is the verb teki used with maaleja instead of a verb that directly means “score”?

In Finnish, the usual expression for “to score a goal” is:

tehdä maali = literally “to make/do a goal”

So:

teki enemmän maaleja
literally: “made more goals”
natural English: “scored more goals”

The verb tehdä (to do/make) is very common in fixed expressions like this, and here teki is its past tense (he/she/it did/made).

What does enemmän mean exactly, and how is it different from lisää?

Enemmän is a comparative quantity word: it means “more (than something else)”.

enemmän maaleja = more goals (than the other team / than before etc.)

Lisää also translates as “more”, but its nuance is more like “additional, extra”, without explicit comparison:

Haluatko lisää kahvia? = Do you want more (additional) coffee?

In a comparative statement like “the team that scored more goals (than the opponent)”, Finnish uses enemmän, not lisää:

✅ joka teki enemmän maaleja
❌ joka teki lisää maaleja (this would sound like “that made some extra goals,” not a direct comparison of totals).

Why is maaleja in the partitive plural instead of maalit?

Maaleja is the partitive plural of maali (goal). There are two main reasons for the partitive here:

Object of “tehdä maaleja”
With verbs like tehdä (to do/make) referring to an indefinite quantity of something, you often use the partitive:
- tehdä maaleja = to score goals (some number, not specified)
Object after a comparative quantity word
After words like enemmän (more), the noun is usually in the partitive:
- enemmän maaleja = more goals
- enemmän rahaa = more money
- enemmän ihmisiä = more people

So enemmän maaleja is the standard pattern: comparative “more” + partitive plural object.

Could the sentence also be “Turnauksen voitti joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja”? What is the difference?

Yes, that is a perfectly correct and common alternative.

Turnauksen voitti joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja.
literally: “The tournament was won (by) the team that scored more goals.”

Differences in structure:

Original:
- Subject: voitto
- Verb: meni (went)
- Recipient: joukkueelle (to the team)
Alternative:
- Subject: joukkue (team)
- Verb: voitti (won)
- Object: turnauksen (the tournament, in genitive functioning as object with voittaa)

Meaning-wise in English, both basically say “The team that scored more goals won the tournament.”
The choice between them is mainly about style and focus:

Original emphasizes “the victory” going somewhere.
Alternative emphasizes “the team” doing the winning.

Can the word order be changed, for example Turnauksen voitto joukkueelle meni… or Joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja, sai turnauksen voiton?

Finnish word order is flexible, so several variants are possible, with slight changes in emphasis.

Possible and natural:

Turnauksen voitto meni joukkueelle, joka teki enemmän maaleja. (original)
Turnauksen voitti joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja.
Joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja, voitti turnauksen.
Joukkue, joka teki enemmän maaleja, sai turnauksen voiton.
(literally: got the victory of the tournament)

More unusual / marked:

Turnauksen voitto joukkueelle meni, joka teki enemmän maaleja.
This is not natural; the relative clause joka teki… should stay right after the word it describes (joukkue / joukkueelle), and breaking that connection sounds wrong.

So yes, you can rearrange, but:

Keep the relative clause close to its antecedent.
Be aware that moving words changes what is emphasized in the sentence.