Two of the latest signings add 14 goals from the 2012 season to the roster. The Bosnian pair of Adnan Omerovic and Kemal Dedic are both great additions to the team.

In particular, the Omerovic re-signing had been anticipated with excitement among the supporters since the off-season started. The team is still a little thin on forwards, and Ado is definitely an important piece to the puzzle. He scored nine goals last season, a few of which were very important ones. In particular, I’m sure nobody has forgotten his 3-2 and 4-2 goals on the 82nd and 87th minute of the promotion final. He also scored the match-clinching 2-0 goal in the Pelikassit home match. To me that victory was one of the top five moments of the season. Omerovic cannot be sure of a lot of playing time as the competition for playing time will probably be fierce in almost all positions, but if things go well for him, I could definitely see him getting to double digits in goals scored next year.

Dedic is going to be fighting for playing time among a group of midfielders that is getting stronger each time the club signs more players. He was used in many roles last season, but played his best matches on the wing. Towards the end of the season he seemed to lose out the battle for playing time to the likes of Nawar Karikuss and Mohammed El Harrak, but made the matchday 18 on a regular basis. To me he looks likely to be an important squad player next season, but could even rise to a more important role if things go very well for him. And of course a squad player can be compared to a fire extinguisher: you only regret getting a bad one when you need to use it. With Dedic I think we can be sure that when he gets playing time, he will match the quality of the players that most of our opponents play in the same position. It looks like all players that make the team for next season are ones that can be used in any match without hesitation, and that is a good place to be.

TamU-K now has 17 players under contract for 2013. We can probably expect a few more before the Finnish Cup starts sometime in January (date TBD), and by the start of the Vitonen season in April I imagine we will have at least 25 players on the roster. There are still some exciting players coming on trial. For example, a high-profile forward by the name of Andrea Milanti was going to play a training match with us this weekend. However, that match had to be canceled because the Tampere District Office of the Finnish FA had screwed up with the field reservations. We had made a reservation for an indoors field in Pirkkahalli, but it had been promised to somebody else before we made the reservation, so our reservation is invalid even though it still shows up as reserved to TamU-K when you look at the calendar in the reservation system. Needless

to say, the cancellation was a huge disappointment. Maybe we should send the new TamU-K calendar to the District Office?