Nordic Football News

TPS won MYPA 3-1 and Lahti took a 2-1 win over Tampere United. The latter meant that my prediction accuracy fell from 100% to 50% compared to Wednesday’s round of games, and I’m too disillusioned to round the games up in any more depth now. I will round them up later, however, once the whole round is over. Now on to the preview for Sunday’s games.

HJK (5th) – FC Inter (4th), Sunday 6:30 PM

Once the season is wrapped up, this might be one of the games HJK and Inter look back at as one of the decisive moments of the campaign. HJK have the better players, but recent history shows that head coach Antti Muurinen keeps playing around with the formation and the starting 11, which is not very good. Inter, on the other hand, never seem to win HJK, especially when the two meet in Helsinki. Last year Inter lost three competitive football games of which two were away losses at HJK.

Paulus Roiha is out for HJK. Cheyne Fowler, Ville Taulo and Tuomas Haapala are all doubtful. Inter are missing Mika Ojala.

Fans of other top teams would probably be happy with a draw, but I’m going for a home win.

Home win

RoPS – FC Honka, Sunday 6:30 PM

RoPS’ performance at TPS on Wednesday was acceptable, but they still conceded three goals and lost the game. That doesn’t quite help in the relegation battle, and the time to start picking points is now. Rovaniemi is a difficult place to go for any team, so it is at home where they should pick the crucial points.

Honka are in a similar situation, although they are looking at the upper, not the lower section of the table. They aren’t picking points quickly enough to mount a serious title challenge, so they have to pick up the pace now. Having just won KuPS 4-1 and going out on Sunday to face another relegation-threatened side, they will be hoping they find themselves in a positive run of results after tonight’s game. That may well happen, because they are a better side than RoPS and their U21 players are available again.

RoPS are missing Jarno Tenkula and Janne Turpeenniemi. Markus Paatelainen and John Weckström are out for Honka.

Away win

Haka (1st) – FF Jaro (6th), Sunday 6:30 PM

Haka have started the season strongly, without ever looking like a good team. They play a fairly simple, long-ball game, which will make for an interesting contrast with Jaro’s more austhetically pleasing approach. The pressure of working for Sedu Koskinen has certainly focused the Haka players and management, and they will be expected to swat aside a Jaro side sitting in 6th place at the moment.

Heikki Aho is missing in defence for Jaro, with Parviainen and Minkenen out for Haka. The Valkeakoski side’s unlikely goal machine, Pietari Holopainen, is a doubt. While it would be nice to see Jaro triumph, given their yoth development policies and footballing approach to the game, Haka will probably win with a shinned shot from 6 yards out after a corner.

Home win