Funny how it happens. We play against them twice, and both times two teams leave the field unhappy. Neither team wanted to tie this one, and both felt like they had the chances to run away with a win. Anybody who read my match preview knows I’m dissatisfied as well. Yes, we got a point that may prove very valuable – but I wanted to win FC Melody. The 2-2 (0-0) draw is just as unfulfilling as it was in the spring, even if this time we came back from a deficit twice.

The aftermath of the match has been lively, to say the least. It’s not surprising that on Facebook it has been much more friendly in nature than on the anonymous discussion boards. Nature of the beast I guess. It’s funny, though, how people from FC Melody seem to again have the need to make the point that they were the more skilful team, as if that was in any doubt. That is indeed the whole premise of most of their matches: will their skill be enough against a better organised team that is ready to fight very hard for the win? Yesterday’s match was no different in this regard. That is not to say we do not have skilful players of our own. Of course we do, but we do not rely on skill alone to the same extent.

Both of our goals were scored by the very skilful Andrea Milanti, who seems to be getting into a better form after a difficult first half of the season where he missed a lot of matches and training sessions first due to an injury that he suffered in the first match of the season, and then due to travel related to his work. Now he says he is getting back, and I expect a lot more from him as the fall approaches. The timing is great, because we really do need him in there as injuries have taken a toll on our midfield.

We entered this match knowing that our starting eleven would have to do the bulk of the work. We had only three substitutes, and two of them had not played a minute with the first team so far. That said, Juho Lehtovaara played some twentyfive minutes off the bench, and gave the pass for the 1-1 equalizer. Later on Henri Joki made his debut, and even though he seemed to have trouble keeping up with the pace of the game, he was wide open for a winning goal late in the match. If only Jan Riikonen’s pass had found him. Jyri Helenius from the second team had a great few minutes on the field as the right back replacing Ville Toiva for some ten minutes at the end. He did not need to do a lot, but I thought all he did was quite positive. Granted, I was standing far away from our own goal, so this assessment is mainly based on his offensive participation.

The point that we got from this match puts us back onto the top of the table, albeit with the narrowest of margins as the only thing that separates us and the second team of Ilves is the goal-differential. TP-49 and Pato are four points behind the top duo, and all have played the same number of matches. Only one team is guaranteed promotion, so there does not seem to be a lot of room for error here. Ilves are on a six-match winning streak, and do not look likely to drop many points, if indeed any, and our mutual meeting on August 18th looks to become the big one.

Before that we have four difficult matches to navigate through though. The first one comes on Friday, when we travel to Urjala to meet with UrPS. They are the one other team with vocal home support in Nelonen this year, and they also tend to get a decent overall number of spectators at their atmospheric home field. They have a good home record despite being near the relegation zone on the table, so it will probably be a difficult match. The supporters are of course traveling on a bus to this one – join us!

TamU-K – FC Melody 2-2 (0-0)
58 min Jussi Kemmo 0-1
71 min Andrea Milanti 1-1
77 min Mikko Järvinen 1-2
80 min Andrea Milanti 2-2

Discipline:
28 min Osku Airesto, TamU-K (caution)
28 min Eero Sointu, TamU-K (caution)
56 min Matti Taipale, FC Melody (caution)
58 min Jussi Kemmo, FC Melody (caution)
87 min Lasse Villanen, FC Melody (caution)