Nordic Football News

Photo special: Frozen football

Photo by Tiina Pirilä

Finland has often debated whether to lengthen the season by starting early. As climate change accelerated in recent years, the discussion has intensified and the late-starting schedule has come under fire, but this year things are a little different. Temperatures have barely struggled above -10 across large parts of Finland since the middle of December, and winter football is a good deal more challenging than it has been in recent years. Here Baratunde Wusu shows the PoPa defender and a well-wrapped-up linesman that you don’t need trousers to play in the snow.

Transfer Weekly (week 50): The Weekly is estimating percentages as Lyyski signs for DIF and Muurinen says he is only there to help

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.”

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Mourad Seddiki

ALGERIAN football is on something of a roll right now. The national team has triumphed over adversity, rock-throwing Egyptian fans in Cairo and a tricky play-off in Khartoum to secure qualification for their first World Cup since 1986, and the Algerian diaspora has reacted appropriately.

Wild celebrations took place in Paris and in Algerian communities all over the world, but the news capped an excellent seven days for Tampere based Mourad Seddiki, who holds Finnish and Algerian nationality. Having been named as Tampereen Pallo Veikot’s new head coach on 12 November, the 46 year-old was not about to miss the country of his birth’s passage to the finals.

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Midweek Pick for Ykkönen – goals galore at Vuosaari!

A goalfest is not really needed, I would happily settle for 3 goals in this derby between FC Viikingit – PK35 tonight in the ‘rough’ Eastern suburbs of Helsinki.

Like all of my picks, this one is based on a combination of performances on the pitch and statistics. I have seen both teams play, improve, develop and get thrashed over the years, also this season.

Ykkönen is fundamentally a league where scoring has always been a problem and under 2.5 – goals at any given match is the more likely outcome. The reasons are varied, but to cut a long story short it is down to the fact that attacking is more difficult than defending and all the promising goal-scorers have moved elsewhere as Ykkönen is not the most visible or financially rewarding of the leagues, yet it is demanding and requires commitment from the players, in stark contrast to Kakkonen or the lower divisions.

Viikingit have done well results wise lately, and are one of the promotion favourites in Ykkönen this season. They are one of the teams with some capability and desire to go forward, and as the only 100 % local challenger to the mighty HJK they are also widely expected to return to Veikkausliiga. This season they are unbeaten at home – a fact that also might suggest taking a home win here – and they have scored at least twice in their last five home games, the exception being the nowadays quite resilient Atlantis team that PK-35 know very well by now after their last two contests.

Neither of the teams’ goal statistics over all this season points out that there would be any more goals than usual, which forces me to look further and find the head-to-head stats which I usually would not bother even considering relevant.

24.06.09 Ykkönen PK-35 Vantaa vs. FC Viikingit 1:2
06.09.08 Ykkönen PK-35 Vantaa vs. FC Viikingit 1:2
15.06.08 Ykkönen FC Viikingit vs. PK-35 Vantaa 5:2
27.07.06 Ykkönen FC Viikingit vs. PK-35 Vantaa 2:1
01.06.06 Ykkönen PK-35 Vantaa vs. FC Viikingit 0:5
01.09.05 Ykkönen PK-35 Vantaa vs. FC Viikingit 2:0
09.06.05 Ykkönen FC Viikingit vs. PK-35 Vantaa 0:1

Keeping in mind that this is a fiery derby, the fact that Viikingit have found the net with ease and PK-35’s defence looked poor and injury-riddled when they were hit by a goal machine called Atlantis (1-5), I cannot but wonder the line of 2.25 for total goals.

Recommendation:

Viikingit – PK35 over 2.25 goals at 1.83

For you dear readers out there who are not familiar with Asian Handicap Betting, an explanation of the bet; over 2.25 is a combination of two bets, over 2 and over 2.5.

If there are 2 goals in the game, I will lose one half and get the stake back from the other half. To win this I need 3 goals or more, it does not matter which teams scores as it is a match total.

Puntteri’s Midweek Pick: Atlantis

Like Saturday’s pick, this is not the most obvious of choices. The club is bottom of the table, they have been in turmoil for years for different reasons. Almost nobody likes them that much, and even their home support is non-existent if we leave out the few soccer-moms and the friends of the players.

This season has been even more .. well… interesting. Early in the summer the coach was allowed to leave, the new coach introduced a bus load of new players from Lithuania – his own native country – and another load of Atlantis players decided to abandon the club in which they saw no future not for themselves, given that they had not been paid for quite some time. The FA allowed them to break their contracts and look for new teams.

As a result of all of this Atlantis was withdrawn from most bookies offerings. There were some brave individuals still selling and buying it at Betfair, but the general opinion of the club was… careful, cautious. Many people in the business talked about worst case scenarios, remembering the case of a certain Chinese businessman getting involved in a Finnish football club called Allianssi a couple of years back. That was a sad story about corruption and fixing games professionally, a lesson to be learned.

A couple of months have passed by. The Lithuanians have not gained many new friends in the country. The team has been seen by some as a joke, a disgrace, something that should not exist. The results are poor, the performances in the beginning were awful. Nothing was well or peaceful in the Atlantis camp.

I must admit, I have been suspicious about all of this. Being a football romantic myself I do want to believe in honest games and see the players do their best. All of the players, including goalkeepers. All the staff, coaches, agents, directors. There are bent people in the business, but let us suppose this is not the case and see if there is anything to be found bettingwise of this derby between Atlantis and PK-35.

The bookies offered last week prices of more than 5 for Atlantis home win, and seems like they have learned nothing from that game as there is still 5.00 at Stan James for Atlantis. I know, they know their business and some of them are very well aware of the improvement at Atlantis, but they can not offer too big odds for PK-35 either for risk management reasons.

In the last weeks´s game KPV were slightly better in the first half undeservedly winning it 0-2, but after a 20 minutes long strategy session at the half-time break the team that came out of the Atlantis dressing-room was performing the best football seen at this level in this country this season. They scored early, they hit the post, one of their goals was disallowed, they were not awarded the penalty they fully deserved. They ran over KPV, they should have won comfortably, and KPV is a quality team.

An outstanding performance, which is rewarded with being chosen the Puntteri Midweek Pick. I am sure they must be proud!

Atlantis 5.00 at Stan James, my estimation for this match is roughly 34-32-34. Value, but again not a sure winner. No handicaps this time. When the SJ price drops, you will find a bit lower prices at a bookie near you.

Funnily enough, there is a replay next Sunday, as this game has been rescheduled from 10.7.

Atlantis results so far, which do not support my pick, only my eyes and experience of the game do.

25-07-2009 13:00 Atlantis-KPV 1-2
19-07-2009 15:45 KPV-Atlantis 2-0
15-07-2009 15:30 Viikingit-Atlantis 1-0
10-07-2009 15:30 Atlantis-PK-35 postponed
17-06-2009 15:30 Atlantis-Klubi 04 1-5
14-06-2009 15:30 Atlantis-H-Linna 1-2
07-06-2009 15:30 Oulu-Atlantis 3-0
31-05-2009 15:30 Kiisto-Atlantis 1-1
26-05-2009 15:30 Atlantis-KooTeePee 1-1
21-05-2009 15:30 TP-47-Atlantis 0-1
17-05-2009 15:30 Atlantis-JIPPO 0-2
10-05-2009 15:30 KEPS-Atlantis 2-1
03-05-2009 15:30 Atlantis-PoPa 0-1
24-04-2009 15:30 Viikingit-Atlantis
17-04-2009 15:30 Klubi 04-Atlantis 4-1

Kerry Skepple interview

ATLANTIS are not the most glamorous of teams to play for, but Helsinki football has been a revelation for their Antiguan striker since he signed for the Ykkönen side. Having played part time in his homeland, making ends meet by working as a journalist, the opportunity to play professionally arrived late for Skepple.

The German president of Bonner SC has previously tried to bring Caribbean footballers to Europe, his most notable attempt being the 1999 signing of the entire Cuban national team. That led to the German FA introducing restrictions on the number of foreigners playing for German amateur clubs, which in turn meant that Skepple could not play for Bonn as their quota of foreigners was full.

Happily for Atlantis, as the international striker is now free to play for them with Viol sponsoring his wages. We caught up with Skepple on his arrival for a second season of Finnish football.

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Tampere cancels football, saves pitch for Bruce to run on

Tampere city council’s finest sport facilities maintenance minds were hard at work today, trying to decide how to ensure Tampere’s most successful club could fulfil it’s fixtures that Bruce Springsteen’s concert at Ratina Stadium on 2 June can go ahead without fans risking the horror of muddy shoes. Present at the meeting were Esa Auvinen and Markku Wacklin from the city council, Peter Lundström from Veikkausliiga, Tero Auvinen from the Finnish FA and Sami Salonen, Jari Runsas and Jarkko Wiss from Tampere United.

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Photo Gallery: Lapland derby

PS Kemi 1 TP-47 0

17 July 2008

This fixture drew an attendance of 1,660 people, a big crowd for the Finnish First Division and an all-time record for PS Kemi. The Sauvosaari ground in the centre of Kemi once saw a crowd of over 4,000, for a promotion play-off between Into Kemi and Ponnistus Helsinki back in 1969, although from these pictures it’s difficult to see where they would have stood. Into now concentrate on women’s football, after losing a lot of their players to Kemin Pallo Seura (KePS) on relegation from Kakkonen in 1978.

KePS had started their own bingo game in the seventies, invested the money in their squad, were promoted into Kakkonen (the Finnish Second Division) in 1976 and eventually had a spell in the top flight from 1984 until 1989. In that time KePS finished third in 1985 and were runners-up to RoPS in the Cup the year after.

TP-47 were relegated from Veikkausliiga in 2005 and were mid-table in Ykkönen for a couple of years before struggling last season, only avoiding relegation to Kakkonen on the last day. Kemi ended up comfortable in mid-table, and their 1-0 win in this match was a memorable step towards consolidation. Kemi and Tornio are both small, industrial towns and the region has suffered economically in recent times with the potential for knock-on effects for sport in the region.

TP-47’s main sponsor is steel company Outukumpu, who have brought production to Tornio from plants they have acquired abroad, while Kemi’s  shirt sponsor is Stora Enso, a partially state-owned paper industry firm that recently closed a cellulose plant in Lapland. The days of industrial support for small town football are coming to an end, as demonstrated by Valkeakoski side FC Haka’s transition from UPM’s factory team to nightclub baron Seppo ‘Sedu’ Koskinen’s publicity vehicle. It’s difficult to see where  Kemi will get financial support to carry out desperately needed ground improvements at Sauvosaari, the home of football in Kemi since the 1930s.

All photos are ©  Teemu Kvist

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Espoo

Cities tend to have a distinguishing feature, something that sets them apart from their rivals. Venice has canals, Barcelona offers weird looking Gaudi architecture, New York has sky scrapers. In Espoo – second biggest municipality in Finland, and home to Nokia headquarters – the main feature of the landscape is the car park. Multi-story, dirt-track, fenced off fields – they’re absolutely everywhere.

People live in Espoo because they want to pretend the Greater Helsinki conurbation does not exist, and that means they all have a car so they can get from place to place without interacting with anybody else. This helps make Espoo a disturbing suburban mix of cars, roads, fields and housing, with no centre and next to no public transport.

It’s not absolutely diabolical. They have a Veikkausliiga team, for starters, and they’ve done very well this year. They hope to get a new stadium soon, and by crikey they need it. Honka play at a Sunday league ground. They seem to have stolen the seats from a primary school and nailed them to benches, covering the stands with some plastic sheeting. You can see the priorities of Espoo decision makers by comparing the Länsi Auto areena – a hockey rink sponsored by, what else, a car dealership – with the Tapiola football ground:

Honka did well to hold Finnish Champions Tampere United (for another three days or so) till extra time, when they scored twice to get the win. The game was a bit dull, and Jonne Hjelm should have won it for TamU when he hit the bar, and again 5 minutes later when the referee inexplicably failed to give a penalty when he was scythed down by Ville Jalasto. The headline in HBL was ‘Honka win the wrong game’, referencing their 4-3 loss to TamU in the league on Saturday.

Honka now travel to Haka in the semi final next Wednesday, after playing IFK Mariehamn away in their final league game this Sunday. Honka can win the league if they beat the Ålanders and Inter fail to beat Jaro at home, but it could end up being another near miss for Mika Lehkosuo’s men.

The attendance was not announced, probably as it was so small, but it was swelled by one Tampere United fan from Moscow. Vladimir has followed the club for 4 years, since he bet on them and started playing Championship manager as TamU, and he made the trip to Espoo with 100 or so TamU fans. Here’s Vladimir with his post-match pint:

JJK win promotion to Veikkausliiga

Jyväskylä in Central Finland is a town of about 85 000 people and until today it has held a record they should not be proud of: for a long time Jyväskylä has been the biggest town in Finland that has never had a football club in Veikkausliiga, the top flight of Finnish football.

In Jyväskylä, football has always been hidden in the shadow of ice hockey. During the last two campaigns, however, things have been better for JJK. It was only in 2006 that they won promotion to Ykkönen from the third tier of Finnish football. Despite of that, 2007 saw the Jyväskylä team fight for promotion to Veikkausliiga and they sometimes got crowds of over 4000. This year they picked up where they left off and had decent crowds, and rumours are saying that today’s game against PS Kemi was played in front of almost 5000 people.

PS Kemi had nothing to win or lose before the game, but they still managed to cause some trouble as Denis Santos converted a penalty in the 35th minute to cancel out the lead Mika Lahtinen secured the hosts in the 18th minute.

JJK, unwilling to settle for anything but a win, eventually came out the victors. Not surprisingly it was Wusu Babatunde who scored the winner, netting his 23rd goal of the season. The former TPS player has attracted interest from some Veikkausliiga teams, but the promotion could make the Nigerian stay.

In the end, JJK wouldn’t even have needed to win. The only other team with a possibility to snatch straight promotion was Viikingit, who succumubed to a 4-1 loss against Jippo. JJK still did a professional job and ended their season in style, while Viikingit will face either IFK Mariehamn or KuPS in the promotion play-offs.

There are a couple of issues that won’t be solved before JJK kick off their first Veikkausliiga team in the spring.To start with, JJK will join the lengthy list of clubs that have to negotiate with the town in order to improve the stadium. Their venue, Harjun stadion does not quite live up to Veikkausliiga standards. It is only natural, as JJK have only recently been able to mount a serious promotion challenge after playing in Kakkonen for seven years.

Secondly, they will have to find a way to attract the crowds. The first few games are likely to make people move in numbers, but their first Veikkausliiga season won’t probably be easy. How to keep the people interested if the team is playing to avoid relegation or achieve a mid-table finish?

Having said that, JJK’s promotion will hopefully be an upheaval to the whole football community in Jyväskylä. A better team means more people and if everything goes right, more junior players. JJK’s promotion could be a route to increasing the popularity of football in Central Finland.

Atlantis 1 JJK 0

This game kicked off at 2pm on Saturday, 3 hours before the Finland-Azerbaijan game and just 100 metres from the Olympic Stadium. The ground is called Bollis, or Pallokenttä, and it is the oldest football ground in Finland. There is only one stand, it is uncovered, but when fans chant the echo from the apartment blocks on Urheilukatu is pretty impressive. Similar to Brahen Kenttä in Kallio, where Stadin Kingit make HIFK Bandy games an enjoyable spectacle, the key is proximity to the pitch and no wide open spaces on any side.

I arrived quite early and went for a coffee at the smart cafe under the stand, which provided welcome shelter from the mizzling greyness enveloping Töölö. Atlantis would like there to be a roof on top of the stand at Bollis, but apparently ‘the whole area is protected’ so Helsinki Council won’t do it.

With my prgramme there was an advert for Jorma Kronstedt, a Kokoomus candidate in the forthcoming local elections. Being extremely cynical about politicians of all stripes, I decided to give him a call and ask to meet up at half time, in the certain knowledge that he wouldn’t be wasting his Saturday afternoon watching Ykkönen football. I was wrong, he came and introduced himself just before kick-off, and his campaign manager was there before the game to have a lengthy discussion about his policies. So was Christian Thibault, a bulky German who is also standing in the elections. He’s a Svenska Folk Partiet candidate in Espoo.

Both had gratifyingly down to earth ideas, and wanted to use football (and sport in general in Kronstedt’s case) as a force for social cohesion. The problem as Thibault sees it is that kids don’t have the money to pay their subs (around €100 a year), especially immigrant kids. So Atlantis have a ‘hundreds’ club whereby businesses and individuals can chip in €100 and help a young player play for free, when they might otherwise be unable to afford it.

Thibault is a strong believer in football’s ability to change society. “When people go to a game, they sit next to each other, they mix, they talk and they have something in common,” he told me before the match. “The chances to interract between Finns and immigrants are pretty rare, so maximising these chances is vital for us.”

It’s a great image, and the idea of ‘keeping kids off the streets’ is also prominent with Kronstedt. He coaches hockey and golf as well, and sees them all as a means of preventing the listlessness of unemployed youth. There is a strong strand of paternalism in Kronstedt’s politics (he’s in the right wing party, after all), but he and Thibault seem genuine, they go to matches, and they support a football club that needs the money and seems to be doing good work.

JJK did not play well. Ady was inventive and clever, keeping moves flowing and looking after the ball, but the Atlantis defence were resolute. Eid Adel was particularly impressive, keeping a lid on Babatunde Wusu and making a couple of last ditch tackles.

There were a LOT of JJK fans there, and the racket they made was quite impressive. The crowd was 835, but that didn’t include the 100 odd people standing on Urheilukatu watching the game without paying, or the several journalists who had gone in before the Azerbaijan game to have a quick look.

In the second half Skepple scraped a shot home, and Atlantis had something to hang on to. The news of TPV’s surprising win at Viikingit filtered through to give the JJK fans some hope, but aside from a weak header by Wusu and a goal disallowed for offside, they created little. The result secures Atlantis’s position in Ykkönen, as VIFK now travel to Tornio for their final game against TP 47 knowing that a draw will see them cling on to their position in Ykkönen.

The title race goes to the wire now, with Viikingit away at JIPPO and JJK hosting Kemi. If JJK win they go up as champions, if they draw then Viikingit need to win by three clear goals to win the title. a two goal margin might be enough, depending on how many JJK get. The team that finishes second will play off against the second bottom team in Veikkausliiga, either KuPS or IFK Mariehamn.

Musan Salama 1 FC Jazz Juniors 1

I should make a declaration here: I have strong Musa sympathies. It wasn’t really a day to be neutral, given that the top of the Kolmonen table looked like this in the morning, before the last game of the season:

FC Jazz Juniors, pl 17 pts 45

Musan Salama, pl 17 pts 44

So Musa needed to win to overtake Jazz and get into the play-offs for promotion to Kakkonen. They are a tortuous procedure involving two sides from Vaasa and central Ostrobothnia and one each from Tampere and Satakunta. It is not usually that difficult to get promotion that way, as a lot of clubs don’t try too hard because they cannot afford the increased costs and regular drubbings that would come with a season in Kakkonen.

But I digress. Musa, always the third club in Pori behind PoPa and FC Jazz, have in recent years yo-yo’d between Kakkonen and Kolmonen. Jazz are the heirs of PPT, who my more biased contacts in Musa regard as being slightly flasher and brasher than is altogether necessary. The reformed team gained successive promotions in 2006 and 2007, after tax-paying difficulties forced the senior side into bankruptcy in 2004.

That unfortunate incident is the reason they are called ‘juniors’, despite one or two beer guts and bald patches among their players. They have also signed a couple of players from Musa this season, adding a little bit more needle to what was already a big match for both sides.

There is a thriving transfer market among the Pori clubs, and indeed one of the anticipated effects of PoPa’s elevation to Ykkönen is an influx of new players to their squad, which will in turn free up a better standard of player for Musa and Jazz to sign. The local paper carried a story about PoPa’s recruitment plans for next season (they secured promotion last weekend), illustrated by a picture of Antti Sumiala – 85% owner and centre forward at PoPa; used to play for NEC Nijmegen, Vaduz, and Kansas City Wizards, among many others – holding up a globe in front of a rickety looking plane that hopefully isn’t in service.

The plan is that PoPa will look to South America for their players next year, using Piracaia’s contacts. Their budget this season is €200,000, and manager Rami Nieminen says that they are looking to increase it by 30-50%. That would give them a budget of €260,000-€300,000 (I am a maths genius, I know), which is not too shabby at Ykkönen level and should allow them to compete.

Satakunnan Kansa’s Anne Sivula argues that they should use this to sign players who have left Pori and would like to return, citing Inter Turku goalkeeper Oskari Forsman’s recent comment that he would like to play Veikkausliiga football in Pori.

It is not a binary choice, of course. The ideal situation is to have high quality imports and motivated homegrown players, rather than headline catching Brazilians who might or might not succeed. Whichever route PoPa choose to take, they will sign new players and that will allow both Jazz and Musa to strengthen their sides, which will continue the renaissance of football in Pori. It’s not quite back to the level it was in the 1990s, but it’s getting there.

Anyway, the game. Christ, the game. Musa started as if they’d been drinking heavily last night, and were lucky to get to half time at 0-0. Jazz hit the post and sliced open Musa again and again, with Joao Gaetti showing a vision to spot passes that compensated for his slight paunch and lack of pace. Jarno Ruisniemi was quick and occasionally dangerous for Musa, but Jazz always seemed to have an extra man and Ruisniemi kept getting outnumbered.

There was a passage of play that amused me greatly, when the shouty Jazz bench encouraged their strikers to chase the ball down. The Musa defence, just shaking off their hangovers 20 minutes into the game, were a bit surprised but quickened their passing. Gaetti and his strike partner ran for a bit but after 30 seconds they needed a breather and dropped back to the halfway line.

This seemed to rouse Musa a little, and for 20 minutes either side of half time they were on top, culminating in a goal from Juha Vallin on 64 minutes. They then dropped a little too deep trying to defend the lead, but seemed pretty comfortable and when Jazz hit the woodwork again it looked like their moment had passed. Musa broke free on one occasion and inexplicably missed with three players forward and only the keeper to beat, and then, right at the end, Aleksi Nurminen headed the equaliser that takes Jazz into the play-offs.

There are a load more pictures here and here.

Viatcheslav Malakeev: Ykkönen’s answer to Iordan Letchkov

Viikingit midfielder Viatcheslav Malakeev

I went to Hämeenlinna on Tuesday to see Viikingit’s second defeat of the season. I’ve been there twice now, both times in very very wet conditions, and I can’t help thinking the ground will be very nice in the sun. If the sun ever shines in Hämeenlinna, that is.

The game was tight and tense but never free-flowing, and the wet weather helped the pitch cut up a treat. There were a lot of tasty challenges, and it was no surprise when Viikingit’s combover king Viatcheslav Malakeev was sent off for a second yellow card late in the game. He didn’t really deserve it, but there were so many late and potentially dangerous tackles going in that it was foolish to annoy the referee as much as Malakeev did with some world class moaning and bitching.

His haircut was what made him my favourite Viikingit player, though. In Britain footballers tend to go for ‘the Carsley’ as soon as they get little receders, to the extent that even Alan Shearer’s curly quiff was seen as a daring challenge to convention. The head gets shaved and nobody looks like Pirkanmaa’s safest driver Kimmo Sasi.

As a big fan of Iordan Letchkov, I applaud Malakeev’s courageous stand against the clippers, and wish more footballers would follow suit.

As for Ykkönen, well, great league, it’s got bald guys, and any two from Oulu, Viikingit and JJK to go up.

Demba Savage signs for FC Honka

That’s about the size of it. I’m very pleased about this, Savage is a skillful, quality player and has deserved his chance for a long time. I’m sure he’ll do a good job for Honka.

It’s good that Finnish clubs have the financial might to sign players like Savage from decent Ykkönen clubs. That has been a problem, as clubs have either not scouted players at that level or haven’t been able to sign them because they couldn’t afford the fees. Honka are currently cash rich after selling Patronen and Maanoja, and using their money to good effect.

I seem to remember accusing Honka of an ‘unimaginative transfer policy’ a while ago. After the last couple of moths, I think I can say that that was 100% horseshit. Sorry.

Dodgy refs, table-topping stutterers and Daniel Nwoke

TamU had a bizarre night in Lahti last Friday, with an odd refereeing performance, a crucial goalkeeping mistake, three goals in the last minute and a questionable red card, but nobody said anything about match fixing.  You can see the highlights of their 2-2 draw here.

On saturday I went to valkeakoski to see FC Haka vs FC Honka. These two clubs are the last remaining Finnish teams in Europe this season, and to be honest they weren’t that good. Honka got a last minute winner as hundreds of former Haka players swelled the gate to a pathetic 1,500, the old boys being invited as part of a reunion.

Aleksandr Kokko is a decent enough striker, but he was fouled a lot and the referee offered no help. I judge him to be of little threat to TamU’s lethal weapon Henri Myntti at the top of the goalscoring charts, but even so I think Honka are a decent side who will cause some upsets in the title race this year. Honka got a last minute winner and looked a solid bet for third place, or maybe second if HJK mess up their difficult run-in. You can see the goals here.

On Sunday it was Tammela Stadium for me, and TPV against PK-35.  Two words to say about this: Daniel Nwoke. If he doesn’t get a new contract at TamU he will tear Ykkönen apart, but he can probably do a job at Veikkausliiga level. I don’t think he’s that much worse than King Henri, but for whatever reason he hasn’t clicked at TamU and it might be best for everyone if he moves on. PK-35 certainly couldn’t live with him, his finishing and passing were very good and he led the team well. No highlights of this one I’m afraid, but TPV won 2-0 and played much better than their league position suggests. They won’t be relegated this year.

On Monday the two title contenders met at Finnair Stadium in Helsinki. It was an excellent game between two evenly matched teams, but it was in the end decided by errors. Patrick Bantamoi should have come off injured before the freekick that gave HJK their first goal, Jos Hooiveld should have stayed closer to Dawda Bah for the second, and Domagol Abramovic was very grateful for slack HJK passing for his second. Medo got the winner in the last minute with a deflected strike. On this evidence Inter are a better team and will win the title, especially given the tough games HJK have coming up. You can see the highlights here.

One thing for HJK to note: stick a few of the free tickets up near the journos next time you want a big crowd, because a 7,000+ crowd does not look credible when you know the names of everyone in the stand. And that is only 20 people. Jonas Von Wendt mentioned this in Hufvudstadsbladet today, saying the crowd was probably around 5,000, and it certainly felt that way. I still can’t get my head round a stadium that  only holds 10,770 people and manages to make them all so far away from the pitch. What’s the point?

I would talk about PoPa’s American who uses the word ‘twat’ (a very British swear word) when abusing linesmen, but I’m very tired and I reckon that probably deserves it’s own post. Tomorrow, maybe.

FC Hämeenlinna 3 GrIFK 0

I saw my first game at Kauriala today, and I was impressed. Alright, it has an athletics track, but all the seats are under cover and it has one of the best views from the bar of any ground in Finland. It was a bit wet before the game, so I did not get the chance to see the castle or the jean Sibelius museum, but what I did see of the town was very nice. I took some pictures: