I haven’t written match reports for non-competitive matches this season, but today the 1-0 (1-0) result against TP-T is not a good reflection of the events on the field, so I decided to drop a few lines. Yes, we lost the match, but the second half was full of great goal-scoring chances for us, and for long periods of time TP-T had difficulties to even bring the ball to our half in a controlled manner. Of course, they had a few chances too, but the typical situation where the opponent eventually scores when you do not finish your own chances never happened in the second half.

The circumstances ahead of this match were not the easiest. For a while it looked like we were going to get a good number of players on the bench for this one, but during the last 24 hours before the match three players had to opt-out due to flu-like symptoms and such. In the end we started with only Lauri Heittola and a new trialist by the name of Sergio Moreschini on the bench.

The starting eleven was one of the best we’ve had recently. Most notably, Anssi Saiha played his first match this off-season, and played a great match, especially given that he had played only one match between now and July or so. It looked like he and Andrea Milanti found a creative partnership almost immediately. Eero Sointu looked very good as a striker, and was wide open for a pass on numerous occasions. Jan Riikonen showed more and more promise. I could more or less list the whole team here. And indeed, the players in blue looked much more like a team than they have during the whole winter. The contrast with the performance last weekend against PP-70 was like that between night and day, to use a cliché. Even the trialist impressed enough that he will probably get to continue with the team. I hear that he had only one training session with the team before the match, his first bit of training after moving to Finland.

To highlight the significance of the good performance, I’ll point out that TP-T is a team in Kolmonen, one division higher than us, and has been one of the best teams there recently. Our first half was very decent despite allowing the goal that ended up being the game-winner, and in the second half we were dominant. I certainly did not expect this. The only worry here is with goal-scoring, but if there are any monkeys trying to climb on our players’ backs, there’s plenty of time to shake them off before matches where the result actually matters start. Besides, I’m sure that a few players who made selfish choices in some situations would have made smarter choices if points had been on the line.

A lot of positive energy was added into our winter by this performance. Hopefully the team will build on it with a few goals next weekend in Jyväskylä against Palokan Riento. See you there!