The Veikkausliiga championship will be won this year with a point average that has rarely been seen in the league. Two teams are struggling for the championship, both of which have had bad days during the season.
Went how it went, but the current Veikkausliiga season will be quite exceptional in history anyway. Less often, the top two have accumulated side by side with as many points as HJK and KuPS this season.
Both teams have two matches left, and the championship will be suspended for the first time on Wednesday, when HJK will face HIFK in a local match and KuPS, who is leading by a point in the league, will visit Seinäjoki at SJK’s home field.
The fiercest climax of the season would be achieved if the championship were not decided until Sunday in the last round match KuPS – HJK.
If HJK will lose their next two matches, with a final average of 2.04 this season. On average, the championship would have come off every ten years, but not this year.
KuPS has posed a challenge to HJK that the reigning champion has had difficulty meeting.
If KuPS wins both of their remaining matches it will have a Score Average of 2.29, and with a better average, the championship has won only HJK in the last ten years in the 2011, 2017 and 2018 seasons.
The last time the number one and second in the series have played through the season was an average of at least two points in 2005, when MyPa won the series and HJK was second.
KuPS started the current season well in the spring and winter, when it made convincing progress to the Finnish Cup final.
Three days before the start of the season, there was a setback that got the team’s suspicion of power.
Right side pack Saku Savolainen, 24, was injured in the training in a harmless looking situation and was left aside due to a knee injury for the rest of the season. Savolainen had to be the key players of the team.
Savolainen told about what happened recently on Instagram and said that “luckily our gang doesn’t crash with one man, the season is still taken home at home”.
KuPS head coach Simo Valakari however, says he saw at the time of the injury how Savolainen’s misfortune affected the team’s dynamics.
“It pushed the team to doubt what this was going to be,” Valakari says.
The next day, KuPS acquired a 22-year-old Nigerian defender Henry Uzochukwun From Denmark FC Midtjylland. At the same time, a Brazilian striker joined the team Lucas Rangel.
“Although so we got a replacement player, our play was different. It took its own time before we found a way to play without Saku. It was a big deal – really. It affected the team dynamics of the whole team. We got ahead of it and played with these players we now have. ”
The KuPS league season began with an undefeated draw against HJK, and after that it won HJK in the Finnish Cup final after a penalty shootout.
In the next two games, KuPS advanced, according to Valakar, by winning the Cup with “euphoria” from FC Lahti and IFK Mariehamn. Then came the two defeats that led to defeat.
“I knew that after winning the Finnish Cup, Tuesday’s Lahti away game and Friday’s home game would go with euphoria. Then came a week’s break before the Ilves game, and I knew there could be difficulties in it – as it came. Ilves played a good game. Then there was the home game against Haka, which we controlled, but Haka managed to score two goals. ”
“I saw in a good way that the players reacted to them thinking they were better than those losses. I sensed that they didn’t want to throw the opportunity away. ”
KuPS started snapping one after another. The third and so far last loss of the season came in the tenth match of the season. Since then, the team has played fifteen matches without losses.
HJK only experienced its own low in the last quarter of the season. The first loss of the club’s league season came in an away match at AC Oulu, where the head coach Toni Koskela saved half a dozen of his key players. The result was a 1-2 guest loss.
The actual bad spiral started with injuries to key players. First, at the end of July, a Japanese player was injured Atomu Tanaka, which was an important part of HJK a pressing game.
Then the midfielder quarterback Lucas Lingman was sidelined from three matches at the end of September. The first of these was played by HJK with Honga, and the latter two lost to HIFK and Inter.
The episode was exceptional, as the last time HJK had played three consecutive matches without goals in the 1993 season.
The defensive leader, the captain, was also on the sidelines of the defeat matches Daniel O’Shaughnessy. The third consecutive home loss in the league came against SJK with a score of 2-3.
During HJK’s four consecutive winning matches, KuPS rose from four points to a three-point league lead.
Although HJK’s situation became awkward in September – October, the team has remained well supported by head coach Koskela. According to HS sources, the team’s critical focus has been more on the club’s sports management and top management. The missing purchases have been marveled at within the team.
It was special that HJK started the season with two young and quite inexperienced goalkeepers.
The put package situation was weak after Joel Untersee and Dylan Murnane left the team. No replacement was obtained to replace the injured Tanaka. And so did the attacker Luis Henrique, which HJK released to Honka.
With HJK’s resources, acquiring players should be in a better position than it is at this wound. The organization has a team specializing in player mapping with three “scouts”, talent scouts. According to HS sources, the competence of this group has been questioned within the club.
Even within HJK, the CEO is considered to be a problem Aki Riihilahti wants to keep all the threads in their own hands.
Coaching team according to HS sources, the dynamics have not been the best this season. Last season, Koskela had his support Mika Väyrynenwho talked a lot with the players.
The coaching team will be renewed again next season. According to information received by HS from two different sources Toni from Korkeakunnas, 53, will be Koskela’s assistant coach next season. Bringing the university to the coaching group of HJK’s representative team was Koskela’s idea.
Former FC Lahti head coach Korkeakunnas has been the training manager for the Southern Region of the Football Association for the past three years and has also served as an observer for opponents on the A national team.
About Koskela’s current coaching group Joonas Rantanen will become the head coach of Gnista IF, who plays in Ykkönen. Rantanen’s willingness to move elsewhere has been known to the club since Koskela entered into a two-year extension agreement, which expires at the end of the 2023 season.
Koskela’s continuation agreement and the still undisclosed agreement of Korkeakunnas show that HJK has committed to Koskela for a longer period of time, regardless of the outcome of the period.
KuPS According to head coach Simo Valakari, the climax of the season will be competed by two “fantastic teams that have played with a high average score”.
“After the early season, we have given ourselves the opportunity to play for the championship. This is a fantastic situation for us. ”
“Many never get to play for the championship in their careers, and that’s why we have to seize this opportunity,” Valakari says.
HJK – HIFK on Wednesday at Töölö football stadium at 6.30 pm. SJK – KuPS at Seinäjoki OmaSp Stadium at 6.30 pm. Ruutu.fi shows matches. HS belongs to the same Sanoma Group as Nelonen Media, whose service is Ruutu.
.
#analysis #KuPS #posed #challenge #HJK #Club #faced #years #Fantastic #situation