I’ll first set the record straight: the 12-0 victory over PiPo-79 on Saturday was not the largest victory in Tampere United’s history. That one happened on the sixth round of the 2008 Finnish Cup against FC Espoo’s second team, 14-0 being the final score then.

On Saturday it seemed that everything just clicked perfectly for TamU-K. I could not name any weak link on the field. In addition to the obvious goal scorers, a few players stood out for me. First of all, the two new Iranian players clearly make the team even stronger. Nawar Karikuss was really lively up front and could have scored more than his one goal, and Alaa Adeeb was excellent at left back. And talking about fullbacks, I was really impressed by Viljami Ahola’s performance on the right side. Hopefully his ankle injury is all in the past, because he provides a very important physical presence in which I find similarities to that of Mika Suonsyrjä who anchored the bottom of our midfield again.

And of course it would be impossible to not mention Joonas ”Bägi” Niemelä, who scored the important 1-0 goal that opened the ketchup bottle. He may not be the most talented player on our roster, but everything he does he does really well, and he never seems to try to do things he cannot do really well. He plays with a big heart too. And hey, his goal was the winning goal too!

However, as well as we played and as great as the result was on Saturday, it is now crucial that the team does not start to think too highly of themselves. Here the manager and the more experienced players like Tomi Lahtinen, Mika Suonsyrjä and Ahmed Lakra have a great responsibility. The next match away against Pelikassit is coming really soon, and the boys from Ylöjärvi will surely play that match with big heart as it is the first ever home match in football for the club that is best known for their ball hockey team.

Going back to Saturday’s match against PiPo, even in the second half when the match was well beyond decided, the manager kept demanding the team to play 100 per cent, and the team responded without hesitation. Therefore I’m not too worried about staying on the right track. There is a sense of professionalism within the team that is great to see. Add supporters who kept on singing and demanding more goals throughout the 90 minutes, and a scoreline like 12-0 was not really surprising. Now we need to keep this up, on and off the field. I trust that we will. This is not your ordinary seventh division club. Instead, as much as possible, we do things as if we already were where our goal is to be.

The photos in this blog post were taken by Mikko Pylkkö. Big thanks on my behalf too! Here I chose photos that relate to supporters, but you can see more in the Finnish match report on this site.

Scoring:
1-0 Joonas Niemelä, 19 min
2-0 Adnan Omerovic, 20 min
3-0 Kemal Dedic, 22 min
4-0 Isaac Gbehan, 23 min
5-0 Isaac Gbehan, 32 min
6-0 Kemal Dedic, 50 min
7-0 Tomi Lahtinen, 57 min
8-0 Ahmed Lakra, 67 min
9-0 Nawar Karikuss, 82 min
10-0 Adnan Omerovic, 84 min
11-0 Viljami Ahola, 89 min
12-0 Adnan Omerovic, 90 min

Discipline:
Ahmed Lakra, 82 min, TamU-K (caution)
Jaakko Huttunen, 58 min, PiPo-79 (ejection)