WORLD CUP!

It’s been a shitty few weeks.  I feel like I say that a lot.

I’ll talk about the games in a bit, but before that I’ll talk about life off the field.  Things have been going well and now I’m looking for ways to better spend my time.  Believe it or not, lounging around all day can get really boring after awhile.  My nights of course are taken with World Cup matches for the next three weeks or so.  It’s been a decent start to the tournament and I’m loving it so far (except for Mexico winning).  

Fuck Mexico.

Spain against Holland

Maybe you wouldn’t know it by watching me play, but I know a ton about the game and really consider myself a tactics junky.  I love the World Cup mostly for the passion that comes through in every game, but also because of the fascinating tactical battles that the tournament produces.  It is the only soccer tournament where countries from different tactical backgrounds are thrust together.  It’s fun to watch the stars of France have to solve the puzzle that is Honduras, a team unlike any they’ve probably played in years.  Later in the tournament, it’s awesome to see tactical adjustments or gameplans for teams that you only learn you’ll be playing a few days in advance.  That tactical uncertainty, along with a ton of pressure, is the reason why the knockout round games are rarely as exciting as the group stage games.  But I digress…

I mentioned I had a bunch of free time, so I’ve taken to finding some ways to fill the days.  The first thing I’ve started doing is some extra training on my off days.  It was difficult earlier in the year to do anything because we had so many games and I was needed to play essentially all the minutes.  That situation hasn’t changed that much, but we have enough players now that we can rotate our team a bit.  That relief is enough for me to have the energy and confidence to get out and work on the team’s off days.  I think the extra training will show.  We players don’t often get to train our individual tasks much when we have so many games so the extra stuff I’ve been doing it pretty necessary.

In totally non-soccer related happenings, I’ve been applying (and getting accepted into) graduate schools.  I’ve noticed that a lot of players here are studying while they play, so I figured why not me too?  I haven’t decided just yet, but it looks very likely that come September I’ll become a “student-athlete”.  I won’t be leaving VPS though, so don’t worry (or sorry, depending on whether you like me or not!)

The Europa League draw is in a week, and I’m excited to see who we draw.  I had a whole writeup prepared a few months ago about the draw, but I had to throw that out the window because we were told that our draw has been regionalized to Scandinavia and northern Europe.  Before I go into who and where I want to play, I will talk briefly about my goals for the club and myself.  The publicly stated goal for our club is to advance past the first round though I think setting a goal like that is a bit silly.  The reason is that the draw could hand us wildly differing opponents.  For instance, if we get past the first round but then lose in the second round to a team from Andorra or Luxembourg, will we be happy with that result?  Happier than if we play Rosenborg and lose on away goals?  The latter situation would be a worse result, but would likely mean that we played a much better game and lost to a better team.  I think our goal should be to beat the teams from lower leagues, and show ourselves well against teams from higher leagues.  This may not fit nicely in a newspaper, but it’s more realistic.  To beat a Norwegian or Danish team would be great, but if we draw the 2nd or 3rd place team in Norway, I don’t think it’s fair that the minimum acceptable result is to advance from that tie.  Anything is possible though and, last week excluded, we’re a really good defensive team so I think we’re ideally built to play a knockout tournament.  Now on to my hopes.

I really hope to play a team from Wales or Ireland.  If we don’t get drawn to the UK, then I’d love to play one of the Swedish teams or Iceland.  I used to live in Sweden so I know all about the clubs there and I’ve been in Gamla Ullevi in Goteborg a handful of times so it’d be nice to actually play there.  I also assume Brommapojkarna(sp) in Stockholm would play in the new stadium in Stockholm (the smaller one) so that’d be cool.  Iceland is on my wishlist in all honesty because I think we could beat them.  We get bonuses for each round we advance so I’d prefer to play the worst possible teams and keep  advancing if I can be cynical for a moment.  Then I hope to play Inter Milan in the play-off round.  Imagine that, VPS playing Inter Milan (aka the “other Inter” to Finnish fans) at the San Siro!  It’s actually harder for me to imagine them travelling to Valkeakoski for a game haha.

I’ve typed so much by now that I simply don’t feel like going through our last few games.  In short, we didn’t really play all that badly but just conceded a lot of goals and we seem unable to score any ourselves.  I was going to go through all the tactical things that I’m sure no one noticed from the KuPS game and talk about what tactics we choose to use against HJK as well, but it would have all gotten quite technical and at this point I don’t think anyone cares.  I’ll break down tactics after a win sometime instead.

This has nothing to do with anything, but today I got another example of old Finnish people charm.  I was riding my bike into town for a massage and in front of me I notice an old man.  I naturally moved my bike very early to avoid this gentleman and took up a lane to his left.  He proceeds to try and jump in my path and starts shouting at me.  I stopped, which I think confused him a bit and tried to acknowledge what he was saying but he was having none of it.  In the end, I think what he wanted was for me to pass him to the left instead of right.  It seems like only in Finland do I get accosted by senior citizens and reprimanded for my behavior in public.  The only senior citizen I actually know in Vaasa is Taku Jokinen, and he’s the happiest guy I think I’ve ever met.  Why can’t everyone else be like him?

Lastly, it was Father’s Day yesterday.  I called my dad of course and we talked for like a half hour like we always do.  I’m really lucky to have such an awesome dad.  He’s always believed in me and is 100% without a doubt my biggest fan.  Scoring in front of him on my senior night in college and against KuPS last year are two of my best memories in soccer.  I rarely called him or my mother last year, but this season I’ve talked to them quite a bit and I’m happy I’ve made that change.  It may very well have a bit to do with my improve outlook on my time here in Finland.  He’s coming to visit in a few months and I’m really looking forward to that.

That’s all, folks!  The meme and then some dad humor:

Time for a break and London Trip

I know you’ve missed me, so I’m here to please the people! I'm even posting on a Friday, and you all know how I feel about Fridays!

Since I last posted, we’ve won two games in a row and didn’t concede a single goal in the process. We had our best 45 minutes of the season in the second half against Honka so the team’s confidence is high.  We always seem to do well in the last game before big breaks and it’s good because it makes the break more enjoyable.  Finishing with a great result also keeps the spirit of the team high and that’s been true into this week.  Training this week has been as good as any week all season, at least since I arrived in March.  People are getting healthier as well so it’s almost all good news. The only downside for me personally was that I got a yellow card on a play similar to this:

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be 2014 VPS if an important player didn’t get hurt so now Timi’s out for months with some sort of ankle injury.  Regardless, we’ve now gone over three games without conceding a goal.  Vaasa is going to have to change its name to Shutout City Finland™.  That’s assuming HJK concedes a goal sometime between now and the end of time.  Now, I’m not going to re-hash the games because there’s not much to say, so instead I’ll talk about life because it’s gotten better now that the weather has improved!

The weather is pretty consistently good now, so I’ve been out and about.  I even made my first appearance at Vaasa’s beach!  There’s not so much to do in Vaasa, but my teammates and I have been making the best of it and enjoying our downtime.  The World Cup is coming up soon, so I’m preparing my house to screen the games.  I have a projector and a screen, so I’m pretty sure the guys will want to come over and watch the games on the biggest possible screen!  The USA games though I have to watch by myself, because I get really intense and don’t like to be around people when USA plays important matches.  The fact that we’re probably going to lose at least 2 out of 3 games only makes it more important that I be alone for those games.

As I mentioned earlier, we had a break for a week. It was a great week and a good chance to recharge my batteries and, more importantly, stock up on a bunch of cheap stuff that I can't find in Vaasa.

The highlight of my trip was visiting Wembley Stadium, one of the biggest and nicest soccer stadiums in the world. The game wasn't very good, but the atmosphere there was amazing. The funny thing was that more people were entertained by throwing paper airplanes onto the pitch than the actual game. We also were seated a few feet away from the people who started a wave that miraculously made it's way around the stadium five times! I got to see a lot of the stars that I watch every week on tv play in person, so it was a great experience.

The walk to Wembley

Stadium empty

Stadium full

I won't bore you with details of the rest of my trip, but I will post some pictures.

Me with my man-purse

Victoria and Albert Museum

Tooting Broadway station.

After the vacation was finished, it was back to reality.  I had to be at training on Monday morning, but didn't leave London until Sunday night.  Unfortunately, that meant flying to Helsinki and spending the night at the airport.  I was worried that I'd not be allowed to do it, but I wasn't even the only person sleeping at my gate.

The view from my seat.  It was 1am.

The plane to Vaasa.  Like something from the 1950s.

I made it back in time on the plane in the picture and went straight from the airport to training.  It must have been good preparation because I did well in that day's training and the rest of the week as well.  Hopefully the good work leads to a good performance from me and the team this weekend in Lahti!

In honor of my going on vacation, the meme is a cheeky dog on vacation:

Fixture Congestion

I said I’d get back around to talking about fixture congestion in Finland, and now seems as good a time as any since my computer won’t let me add any pictures to make my other posts more interesting.  All text Tuesday!

I am really confused about the hierarchy of Veikkausliiga who has decided to put this schedule together.  Everything about Finland flies directly in the face of a 33 game season, and I’m going to painstakingly go over a few of them:

#1 The weather in this country means that the season can’t possibly start any earlier than it does.  We also can’t go much further past the end of October and ensure playable weather.  I saw a story over the winter that this would be the longest Veikkausliiga season in terms of days from start to finish.  Still, we have six games from May 6-26?  We have potentially eight games in July?  From playing SJK near the last day of March, we at VPS were looking at the possibility of playing 33 league games + up to 4 cup games + at least 2 UEFA games.  That’s 40 games between the League Cup final and season finale.  In reality, it’s 37 (plus 2 for each round we advance in Europe) for us in a 7-month span.  37 in 7  months doesn’t sound unreasonable, but that doesn’t tell the whole story because Finland inexplicably takes international breaks despite being a summer league and having only a handful of full internationals in the league.  Add in holidays and we have a week off to start May, a week off to start June, A week off in September and a week off in October.  Yup, a full month of week-long breaks in a 7 month season.  That means that our 37 games are effectively played in six months, a rate of 6 per month.  Six games per month is roughly the rate that Chelsea plays, but they have a squad of 25 + capable youth players, which brings me to my next point.

#2 The nature of the finances of every club in Finland means that squad sizes are small.  I would guess that no team other than HJK will use more than 20 players this season.  VPS only has 20 players anyway I think.  With that understanding, why are we playing a 33 game season?  Why are we forcing clubs with limited budgets to trot out the same 11 guys 6-7 times a month until they inevitably get injured?  Why are teams playing three games in eight days, almost guaranteeing that the last one will be an awful game?  None of it makes any sense.  The best argument I can think of is that a 33 game season means 16 or 17 home games and more revenue.  Fair enough, but how much revenue is lost by playing a game on a Monday or Tuesday rather than a Saturday or Sunday?  We have 17 home games, but 8 of them are not on a Saturdays or Sundays (though 2 more are on Fridays).  In the solution I will pose later, we would have weekend matches in the league almost exclusively.

#3 The League Cup makes absolutely no sense.  We play all the teams around us twice and then play them three more times in the season.  By October we will have played SJK six times in eight months.  That’s not beneficial for anyone.  The League Cup also is a tournament that demands that it be taken seriously, while providing no incentive to do well.  We got a bye into the last 16 of the Finnish Cup by making the Legue Cup final, but we played three extra games in the League Cup to play two less in the Finnish Cup.  Not to mention that the League Cup forced us to travel to Mariehamn and play an outdoor match in 0 degree weather.  Even worse, the League Cup hinders teams’ ability to look at test players in a competitive environment.  Sure you can have a few each game, but the schedule is often so full that there’s no chance to look at five or six test players in their own non-competitive environment.  

In addition to all the previous problems, which amount to more personal preference than actual provable hindrance, is the discouraging of trying new things.  Preseason is a time for a coach to implement a plan for the season.  It is also a time to try new things to see if they work.  The League Cup commitment means that from the beginning of February until the season opener there is no chance to experiment without A) risking a loss in a tournament that has psychological meaning if nothing else or B) showing your hand to another team that you will compete with in the season.  I think this has prevented teams in this league from adjusting or evolving their tactics over the years.

The last thing about the League Cup that I’ll complain about is that it prevents teams from going away for preseason training camp.  I know that some teams still do it, but that is dependent upon them losing in the League Cup.  For VPS this year there wasn’t a single 10 days period after Feb. 1 for the team to go away on a preseason training camp.  I know a training camp abroad is not necessary for success, but of all the places in the world that you’d want to fly away from in a preseason, Finland in February has to be near the top of the list.

So I’ve talked enough about the problems, time for my solution.  It’s not novel, just a common sense approach.  Add two teams to Veikkausliiga (Welcome back JJK and Haka!) and play a simple round robin schedule of 26 games.  For the non-math majors out there, that means that a weekend-only schedule would span six months.  Throw in the same month worth of international breaks that currently exist and you have exactly the same 7 month season length that we have now.  It’s honestly that simple.  If I was in control, the top two teams from Division 1 this year would be promoted to Veikkausliiga, and the bottom team in Veikkausliiga would play a relegation playoff with the 3rd place finisher in Division 1.  Now we have 14 teams.  I’d also eliminate the League Cup entirely because it’s dumb.

Why this would work:

Teams would have more time to train and produce the best possible product on the field. Presumably, that is the goal of Veikkausliiga, since it surely isn’t earning money.  If that were the goal, then we’d never play on a Monday under any circumstance (the obvious exception being if the league had a lucrative television contract that demanded a certain amount of nights a week having games, ie. Sweden and Denmark).  I don’t know how our game is going to go against Honka on Monday, but I can guarantee that it will be a game between two tired teams.  In general that leads to worse games than those between well rested sides.

A schedule like this would also make it easier for teams to compete with relatively small squad sizes.  When I say compete, I don’t necessarily mean that teams with small squads will do better.  Instead I mean that those teams will be able to give a better effort in every game, rather than playing games in which half the team is tired before the opening kickoff.  This is better for competition throughout the league, as well as for moral of the players and fans.  To use the Honka game next Monday as an example again, I’m sure that each team will be using 7 or more players that played 90 minutes the Friday before.  There’s no chance that those players will be 100% fresh for the game, meaning that they are more likely to play less than their best soccer.  A 26 game schedule would not mean that no teams would ever play on less than a week’s rest, but it would eliminate stretches of six games in less than three weeks like VPS is going through now.

The elimination of the League Cup is so self-explanatory that I won’t even go into it further.  If a preseason league-wide tournament was a good idea, Finland wouldn’t be the only country that does it.  End of story.  Even money-crazed England doesn’t force such a ridiculous burden on its clubs.

I’m done ranting.  Hopefully my ideas strike a chord with the people reading this.  I realize that it would mean 3-4 less home games, but if you have a job you probably have missed a few weekday games anyway.  The league should at least force Veikkausliiga onto TV here.  Even if it means showing the games for free (or even paying for airtime, as MLS did in its infancy), a tv slot would at least justify all these weekday games and theoretically should drive up interest in the league and its teams.  Something should be done though.  Anything would be better than the schedule we have now.

Not Good

It’s been a shitty few weeks.

Our injury problems keep getting worse, with Lasse and Henkka added to the infirmary.  We also only got one point from the first 3 of our six games this month.  The fixture congestion is hurting us more than any other team, but more on that another day.  And now my computer is causing me problems which is why this post wasn't up days ago. That means no pictures until I can figure these problems out [edit: pictures up]. The only silver lining is that we probably only have to get through the rest of May with the small squad that’s remaining.  After that we should hopefully be significantly more healthy.

I’ve had a weird month, with bright spots but also some terrible low points.  I played a really bad game against HJK, then a good game against Jaro, and followed that up with another really bad game against KuPS, though I salvaged that by scoring at the end.  My inconsistency these past few games bothers me more than any fan might be bothered by my bad games.  It’s frustrating because I was going well in the preseason and the first few Veikkausliiga games, but in the MYPA game last month I hurt my hamstring and since then I’ve really struggled to find my form again.  If we had the squad for it, I probably would not have played these last few games.  My leg feels better now, but I’m still not close to 100% healthy.  I wish my body would have allowed me to show better in my starting role so far this season.

I kind of glossed over the fact, but I scored my first goal of the season in the last game!

I’m aware that I’m not everyone’s favorite player on the VPS roster, but I hope people at least respect what I bring to the team.  The KuPS game was probably more representative of what I am for VPS than any other.  I played the entire 90 minutes on an injured hamstring, one that if I injured it worse could doom my career since I rely on my speed and a torn hamstring could take that away.  I played 75 of those 90 minutes in a position that is not my preferred spot because the team needed me to.  I had a horror show in that position and made mistake after mistake, but I like to think that I never stopped working for the team.  And then in the end I scored a sloppy goal after missing a handful of chances earlier.  For those hoping for me to go away, it's not gonna happen anytime soon after the last result!

The fact that I got the 3 “Lions” medal after the game almost made me laugh, since I was as aware as anyone that my game as a whole was awful.  I guess a goal cures everything.  Being a striker has it’s perks!

Off the field, I’ve been enjoying myself this month.  Vaasa went from spring to summer then back to winter since I last posted, but now we’re having spring again.  I’ve stuck to my pledge to get out of the house more, mostly because I no longer have a roommate and just get so bored at home.  It’s done wonders for my morale, especially when the team is having a rough moment in the season like we are now.  I remember around this time last year we had a game in Helsinki against HJK.  The night before the game we went down to some small town hotel outside of Helsinki and I decided to take a walk.  During that walk in the woods I sat down (in the rain, no less) and almost broke down crying thinking of how much I wasn’t enjoying myself.  The sheer length of the season that still remained weighed down my spirit.  I sat there for like an hour listening to music and just feeling sad, like some emo teenager.  I’m happy to say now that I’m in a totally different mindset.  I just realized a few days ago that I’m 25% through my contract and I don’t miss America at all at the moment.

I’ve also been immortalized in lego form thanks to VPS’ fans!  I know I said not everyone rates me, but I definitely think I am well-liked as a personality.  I also think the novelty of my hair had a big part to play in my selection to be re-created as a LegoMan.  I actually bought three of them: One for me, one for Celia and one for my niece.  I’ll eventually give the one I’m keeping at my house to my mom or dad if they want it for their desk.  I’ve got to thank everyone who voted for me.  You guys (or let’s be honest, with a face like this it was probably the gals :) ) are awesome!

The meme:

May Day

It’s May!

For most of Earth, that means colorful trees and flowers and sun and great weather.  In Vaasa it only means sun.  It is freaking freezing in this city and according to my phone weather app it’s only gonna stay cold!

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, and last I posted we were in the midst of an injury crisis.  I obviously can’t talk about our injury situation currently as we don’t want to give anything away ahead of the HJK match.  It’s evolving everyday anyway, so even if I wanted to give an update it probably would be wrong.  I actually got injured myself against MYPA and had to come off.  Luckily for me (and for the team) we had a full ten days between MYPA and our upcoming game against HJK.  So now I’m ready to go, as I always am.  Fun fact for all of you: In official matches, I have the longest current streak of games played for VPS.  Assuming I play against HJK, it will be the 43rd consecutive game that I’ve appeared in for the club.  That streak goes all the way back to my debut against IFK Vaasa 14 months ago.  If you don’t like watching me play, well then tough titties because I’m always fit! (Famous last words…)

We had a free weekend and I took that opportunity to do absolutely nothing.  I’ve made a decision to leave the house on every off day, so I did that, but mostly I just sat at home and watched Netflix and played Playstation.  I’ve been playing a lot of Battlefield 4 online recently, and somehow I continue to be terrible at it.  For those who don’t know, Battlefield is a series of war video games and they have teams online.  I play and just get killed repeatedly.  In my last round I played, and this is 100% honestly true, I got killed 4 times in 10 minutes by a player whose username included “Samantha1999”, suggesting that I’m worse at Battlefield 4 than a high school girl.  If you’re worse than a high school girl at anything, then it’s a surefire sign that maybe you should be doing something else with your time.

The past week of training was pretty good, though it was a bit surreal since so many guys are in various stages of recovery from injury.  We’ve had our fair share of injuries, but it’s evened out by the fact that HJK had to play the Finnish Cup midweek, so they’re be a bit stretched as well.  I don’t have much to say about the game really; we know how good HJK can be, but the group we’ve got have played HJK well for a few years now.  We don’t have a fear of HJK that I think hinders a few teams that play them.  It should be a good one!

A bouncyhouse!  Half of my childhood was spent in those things.

I went to the center of May 1 to enjoy the city.  I think that May 1 is Finland’s Independence Day, though I don’t know who they got independence from.  I assume Sweden or Russia.  Anyway, I made a point of actually going to the center for the festivities this year since last year I got super drunk the night before and didn’t leave my house until 5pm.  It was a good time in the center; I’ve never seen so many people in one place in Vaasa.  I wish the center was like that more often.  It would be fun just to go down and hangout.  One of the great things about the biggest cities in Europe is that they have big markets or squares that dependably host a ton of activities.  For a foreigner like me, having a place like that would be great.  Anytime I got bored I would just head to the square.  That makes such a difference.

The games come thick and fast now so I’ll try to post a bit more often than I have been.  Life in general seems to pick up when we’re playing more games so that should lead to more to talk about.  Come support us against HJK!

The meme, for the brainiacs out there:

Injury Crisis

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post.  Well, actually it’s not been that long, it just feels like a long time because so much has happened. We've had so many injuries that I guess I can say that even my blog had to sit out a week to injury.

Since I last posted, we’ve played four games, everyone has gotten injured and Celia has come to visit.  We even squeezed in a day to play with little kids and a meeting with the big wigs of VPS.  Also, shit got real on Game of Thrones, but that’s all I’ll say about that so that I’m not a spoiler!

I’ll briefly go over each of the four games and then list who got injured.

RoPS W 2-0.  We played pretty terribly in this game and made almost no combinations in the entire game.  I came on after ten minutes and played striker until the last few minutes and then finished the game as the left winger.  Fans of VPS will recognize this type of performance since it was the mirror image of the early games last season.  Injuries: Steven Morrissey, broken arm.

IFK Mariehamn L 0-1.  This game was pretty one sided as well.  We had a good spell right after I came on and looked most likely to score in the last 20 minutes, but then a fuck up/miscommunication on my part allowed a MIFK player a free header and he scored the winner in the 90th minute.  Injuries: Frido Nganbe Nganbe, hamstring.

I'm taking pictures of all the locker rooms.  This is Mariehamn.  I can't find the RoPS picture at the moment.

FC Lahti L 0-1.  Second straight game without scoring.  Or maybe it could have been better classified as a clinic than a game.  We don’t have the advanced metrics for this game like we get for league matches, but I’m sure we had less than 30% possession across the 120 minutes.  We showed great heart playing with 10 then 9 then 8 players against 11, but eventually a set play did us in and we didn’t get the chance to steal the game in penalties, although at the pace we were going we’d probably have to pull people out of the crowd to have five players healthy enough to take the penalties.  Injuries: Timi Lahti, no idea.  Cornelius Stewart, hamstring.  Sebastian Strandvall, ankle.

TPS W 1-0.  We got back on the winning track.  A deserved win, although TPS did have 3-4 good chances.  I felt like a draw would have been fair, but our winning was also a fair result based on the game.  I played in my favorite role as a striker next to a hold-up striker in Lasse and it only took 5 minutes in that position for me to create a goal.  I will readily admit that winger is my most natural position based on my skill set, but the position I have played all my life and have the most understanding is what would be termed as a “second striker”.  VPS doesn’t really play a formation that uses that precise role, but we did against TPS after Jarno went off and it got us the winning goal.  The closest I normally get to playing as a second striker is when I play on the left wing.  It’s worth noting that 4 of my 5 goals from open play last year came from the left wing position that I effectively just took the initiative to make into a second striker role.  Injuries: Frido Nganbe Nganbe, hamstring.

Moving on to life, I went to see Steven a couple of days after his surgery and he was in good spirits.  I’ve since seen him multiple times and I can relay to everyone that he’s doing well and itching to get back on the field.  I don’t want to say much more about his injury as it’s his private business and not really subject to a public blog such as this.

In between the Mariehamn and Lahti games, we took a morning out and hosted a clinic for the 5-8 year olds of Vaasa.  While I like kids and can reasonably handle groups of them (I substitute teach kid aged 6-12 every winter in Indianapolis), I absolutely never again want to deal a bunch of kids playing soccer.  Oh my god what a nightmare.  I was partnered with Jesper Engstrom and we couldn’t get any of our groups to play the (very simple) game that we were running.  All I’ll say is that those kids were lucky they were so cute!

She said she wasn't posing, but we know the truth.

Later in the week Celia came to visit and that was really nice.  I haven’t seen her in months and that time has sucked so I was happy to see her again.  We could have had more fun, but everything in Vaasa seemed to be closed the entire time she was here.  I had made plans for things to do, but we ended up essentially just doing the same things I do everyday when I’m by myself.  We did however have a long walk around Vaasa so I got to see a few areas that I’d never gone to before.  I also finally got a win in front of her.  She’d been to maybe 4 or 5 of my games and I’d lost all of them until last weekend against TPS.

While Celia was here, a couple of us guys got together to celebrate Keithy Simpson’s birthday.  It was nothing big, just a nice little celebration.  It’s so important, especially for the new players, that we take time outside the pitch to get together and enjoy each others’ company.  I’ve embraced my time with my teammates this year and it’s made the 7 weeks I’ve been here thus far go by really quickly.  Hopefully Keithy is enjoying his time and not having such a rough start to Finnish life as I had in Valkeakoski.

That’s it for now.  We have a tough test ahead tomorrow against MYPA.  They’ve had a good start to the season and will feel full of confidence.  We’ve also had a horrendous time whenever we’ve gone there so any result will be a boost.  If we get something from the game, then we’ll have 7 or 9 points from 4 games that include the three longest road trips. That’s the kind of start to the season that we’d have taken if you offered it to us last month.

Veikkausliiga Predictions

I’m doing a predictions list, and I have to put it out now because the whole league starts playing in 2 hours.  I planned on posting this two weeks ago, and I actually wrote it on April 3 or 4, but it’s just now getting completed.  I don’t really see much of this in Finland, but in America there are predictions galore.  Hell, there are mock drafts for the NFL for all 200-something picks, even though no one in the world can be sure who is going to get picked 157 or 39 or 213, not even the people making those picks know until a few minutes before.  My list is not going to be as specific as those.  Instead, I will group the league into 4 categories: Possible champions, medal contenders, middle of the pack teams and finally, relegation fighters.  It should be noted that last year I predicted that JJK would be relegated and VPS would get 3rd, though I also predicted TPS would be 2nd and Honka below top 6 (that was before Honka’s still-mysterious spending spree that brought them 5 new starters in a week).  Without further ado, my predictions.

Preseason predictions for Veikkausliiga 2014:

Possible Champions: HJK

Let’s be honest, HJK has double the budget and more talent than any other team in the league.  I think we (VPS) can beat them, but how many other teams can?  They lost their most productive player in Zeneli and a great striker in Pojonpalo(sp), but they replaced those spots with Alho(Aho?...the black guy) and Forsell, so I don’t think they’re too stressed right now.  The championships streak has to end sometime, but it won’t be 2014.

Medal Contenders: VPS, KuPS, Inter, IFK Mariehamn

I think VPS will be #2 this year, simply because I think we’re slightly stronger than last year and our competitors are slightly weaker.  Simple as that.  

KuPS is something of a dark horse.  They apparently have tons of money and every year they seem like they should be one of the best teams, but inevitably end up finishing 7th.  I think if they start well enough to actually care about the last 15 games, then they can finish in the medals.

Inter had a bad year last year, but they got Ojala back and that’s a big deal.  His set play service is worth 15 points a season.  They also obviously have the striker whose name I can’t think of right now who always scores with his head (as long as he avoids threatening referees) and the winger Duah is a heck of a player.  They also have Gruborovics(sp) who is very good and I think they still have the dutch midfielder, who is probably my favorite non-VPS player in the league.

IFK Mariehamn is a great attacking team, but they will probably be undone by their defense.  I know from experience that it’s fun to play with a team that scores a ton of goals, but nothing is more frustrating than scoring 3-4 goals in a game and losing or drawing.  Despite their talent, they have a lot of personalities that won’t like being on the bench for even one game.  A good start for this team could put them top 3, a bad start and they’ll implode and could finish 10th.

Middle of the pack: MYPA, SJK, RoPS, Lahti*, Honka*

This is the “Why are we even playing?” group.  They all have talent, but probably not enough to win medals and too much to be relegated.  

Lahti has a star because they might actually belong in the medal contender group.  I don’t know much about their players, but the striker is a beast and will score plenty of goals.  I also like the tactical flexibility of their coach.  He will have Lahti ready to play 2-3 different formations which will serve them well.  They’ll be able to adjust to tactical mismatches in-game which will allow them to earn points in matches where the initial gameplan isn’t working.  This is essentially the opposite of JJK last year, who had such a rigid gameplan that they could be beaten by literally anyone.  And they were.

MYPA, SJK and RoPS are all the same to me so I’m putting them together.  All will get sufficient points at home to not be in danger of relegation, but each will struggle, especially away and in the summer as the season stretches on.  Don’t be surprised if any of these teams is top 4 in June, but I can promise none of them will be top 3 in September or later.  I’ll let you in on a secret in the league, and that is that every team in Veikkausliiga wants RoPS to get relegated.  No one likes going there, the field isn’t very good and there’s no fan atmosphere to make the game fun.  Ironically, that lack of motivation going to Rovaniemi is a big reason why RoPS takes so many points at home and is in absolutely no danger of being relegated.

Honka is another team with a star because I think they might actually belong in the relegation fighters group.  They have a new coach who was a great player, but I don’t know what his coaching credentials are like.  There’s a reason Michael Jordan and Zidane aren’t head coaches [edit: Zidane is now]...sometimes a coach’s personal greatness makes them unable to teach less gifted players how to succeed.  Honka also is filled with young players and that’s tough.  I had that situation when I played at Enkoping and despite our skill, we lost every game to more experienced teams.

Relegation fighters: Jaro, TPS

Jaro is here every year, and they never actually get relegated so I don’t know what more to say about them.  They have one of the top coaches, but their lack of money and unwillingness to win ugly puts them in this group.  They tried to be pragmatic in the last game we played against them last season and embarrassed themselves.  They simply don’t bring in players who fit that fighting style that is so important in the first 5 and last 5 games in this league.  The ironic thing is that Jaro would probably have more success in Allsvenskan, which is a better league than Veikkausliiga, because the games are more based on possession and finesse than fighting.

I don’t know one thing about TPS except that Patrick Lomski is playing there now and that they are in financial trouble.  They had to get rid of a bunch of players and seem to be going into this season with a bunch of young hopefuls and lower division talent with a very good british guy running the midfield.  Sounds eerily alot like Haka in 2012.

That’s the preview.  Feel free to shower me with praise in November when my predictions are shown to be true.  Just call me Blackstradamus. If I'm horribly wrong, well then screw you make your own predictions and leave me alone :)