The Weekly knows it has been bunking off recently and has not been fulfilling its obligations to write a few lines roughly once a week about close to none-existent transfers in Finnish football. And the Weekly used to be a right perky worker. In terms of work ethic, everything changed after Antti Muurinen, the Weekly’s hero, said in Helsingin Sanomat that “Players are 95 per cent of everything and the coach is only there to help.”
The Weekly has never seen Muurinen train his team but expected that he would have to do a bit more to earn his wages than just carry water bottles to training and gather up the balls that Jani Viander has miskicked around the Finnair Stadium. The Weekly, however, had obviously got it wrong. Taking Muurinen’s infinite wisdom to heart, the Weekly came to the conclusion that if Muurinen is paid good money to do only 5%, why should the Weekly do more.
Jani Koivisto, however, must have been aware of the fact that he’ll have to give a lot more than 5 per cent next season when deciding that rather than doing the absolute minimum at FF Jaro, since they are going to get relegated anyway, he will do all he can to achieve promotion with FC Viikingit.
Claudio, “better than Hooiveld”, Verino left FC Inter after fulfilling about 5% of his expectation value. Verino’s fellow-Argentinian and team-mate Aristides Pertot also departed and should Pertot not kick another football on Finnish soil, the Weekly would like to take a 100% bow to the classy midfielder.
Last season’s surprise package IFK Mariehamn wanted an attacker who will always give 100% so they signed Mikko Paatelainen from TPS. No objections there, should be a smart deal for MIFK. TPS on the other hand are now short of a potential double-figure striker. The Weekly persists that they could do a lot worse than sign HJK outcast Paulus Roiha, 95% injury-prone though he may be.
Jani Lyyski wants to follow in the footsteps of Toni Kuivasto, whose contract expired at Djurgårdens IF, and be loved by 100% of the DIF fans. The former MIFK and VPS player signed a three year deal with the Stockholm club.
Transfers:
Jani Koivisto
From: FF Jaro; To: FC Viikingit; 2009: 15/4; Total: 82/17; Position: F; Date of birth: 25/2/85
Jani Lyyski
From: VPS; To: Djurgårdens IF; 2009: 26/3; Total: 107/9; Position: D; Date of birth: 16/3/83
Mikko Paatelainen;
From: TPS; To: IFK Mariehamn; 2009: 26/9; Total: 168/54; Position: F; Date of birth: 24/11/80
13. December 2009 at 8:44 pm
Mikko Paatelainen is indeed a great signing for IFK Mariehamn, this was exactly the type of player missing in the team last year. If we can sign proper replacements for Arajuuri and Pappas in the defense, I believe we have a serious chance of a top 3 next season. And it looks promising at the moment, 4 test players for the defense were in Mariehamn last week, and the reviews so far sounds very interesting
15. December 2009 at 1:03 pm
Muurinen knows his strenghts: there are none. So, he just lets them boys play. “You’ll be the goalie, you’ll play right back,…” That’s why he delivers when he has good players around. Look what happened in Lahti.
Good singning by IFK M, but what are TPS up to? They don’t have Brown anymore and if they still loose Hämäläinen, Lehtovaara and Wusu then Rautiainen has to start thinking about making a comeback.
17. December 2009 at 8:09 pm
Will this be the season that TPS are proudly professing that they are going to bring in young players (because there is no money)? Then again, most of the ‘big teams’ have stayed relatively quiet in the transfer market.
MIFK on the other hand are looking like a strong contender for the top3 spot, providing that they find a couple of quality defenders.