Nordic Football News

Veikkausliiga heads north today, with long journeys deep into the countryside for HJK and Tampere United. RoPS, KuPS and VPS all have nice grounds but terrible pitches, and the difficulty of getting results there has been evident in recent seasons, with VPS acting as a bit of a bogey side for TamU and KuPS getting a memorable 3-2 win against HJK late last season to help them to a play-off spot.

RoPS v FF Jaro, 6:30pm Sunday

RoPS have lost five of their last six games, the only exception being a 2-1 home victory over fellow strugglers JJK. They’re not a very good team, even after coach Valeri Bondarenko was replaced by old RoPS hand Mika Lumijärvi.

They’ve lodged a protest over their 3-0 defeat to KuPS, after Dickson Nwakaemea was instrumental in helping the Savonians to victory. RoPS claim his transfer from Senegal was outside of the transfer window, which opens for Finnish clubs on the 1st of August.

RoPS’s first choice keeper Kwon returns between the sticks, and Jaro have a few injuries to contend with in defence, including Heikki Aho and Jani Sarajärvi. Their keeper Teles had an especially dodgy game against Tampere United in the cup on Thursday, and I expect RoPS will try and test him.

Draw

VPS v Tampere United, Sunday 6:30pm

VPS are in bold form, only defeated by HJK in their last six games, with four wins and a draw making up the set. TamU have injury problems and will probably give Ilari Ruuth a game at left back, but the youngster is at least as good as, and considerably more mobile than, the player he is notionally understudying – Sakari Saarinen.

While TamU’s home form has been good this season, they haven’t beaten VPS in a league match since the Vaasa side returned to Veikkausliiga in 2006. Furthermore, they’ve lost five away games  out of five this season and it’ll be a surprise if they turn it around in Vaasa.

Home win

KuPS v HJK, Sunday 6:30pm

Football marketing in Finland is something of a aone-trick trade, it seems. The media generally refer to Haka-HJK as ‘Finland’s classico’, I’ve seen TPS-HJK advertised on the TPS website as Finland’s ‘Classical Classico’, the fans of each team regard Lahti-HJK games as Finland’s ‘true classico, and now, the shark is jumped and the biscuit taken by KuPS announcing that KuPS-HJK is the Classico of the 14th round of Veikkausliiga.  Who do they think they’re kidding?

HJK have been in blistering form recently, at least if you look at the league tables, and they should brush aside a Dickson Nwakaemea-less KuPS. They messed it up last season, though, and despite Cheyne Fowler’s emergence as a lynchpin of their midfield, doubts remain over both Antti Muurinen’s tactics and the team’s mental toughness. If they lost in Kuopio they would lose a lot of credibility as title contenders, but I don’t expect that to happen.

Away win

Lahti v Honka, Sunday 6:30pm

Lahti’s form has been patchy of late, with a 2-0 defeat to Dinamo Tirana seeing them through to the next round of the UEFA Europa League, where they will meet Slovenian side NK Gorica. The first leg is this Thursday in Gorica, so Lahti might not be up for this one after away defeats to Haka and JJK left them adrift of the leaders in Veikkausliiga. Defeat to Honka would put them 7 points behind the European places with 12 games left to play, making another European qualification very difficult indeed for Ilkka Mäkelä’s men.

Honka’s side could include Jussi Vasara, Alexander Kokko, Nicholas Otaru and Tuomo Turunen, who did not play against TPS last Monday after their return from the Under 21 Euros in Sweden. Their form has improved noticeably since they returned from their self-imposed exile at Finnair Stadium, with much muttering about how nice it is to play on natural grass again after the soulless plastic hell of the Töölö ground. Honka have their own European game on Thursday, when they take on Welsh side Bangor at home, a somewhat easier tie than Lahti’s.

One interesting facet of the game for me will be how the referee deals with any attempts to rough up Demba Savage. He gets body-checked a ridiculous number of times almost every game he plays, and referees seem reluctant to nip this in the bud with early yellow cards. It’s difficult to fathom how Finnish refs distribute their cautions, with a flurry often arriving at the end of matches, for usually irrelevant offences, while a stern talking to or a booking earlier on in the game could assert some authority that could be used to allow the game to flow later on. Savage is one of the most exciting players to watch in Veikkausliiga, and it would be interesting to see teams having to asign two men to him rather than use excessive violence for the first hour of each match.

Away win