Yesterday’s match was the worst 90 minutes of football I’ve seen this season. Such a pity really that the great season that we have had needed to end in such a disheartening fashion. FC Melody certainly deserved their victory and the Vitonen title, but I’m sure that neither team was very happy with their performance. As it was, TamU-K was the worse of the two bad ones, and the result was exactly what we deserved.

Despite the lackluster overall performance, with decent finishing the match could have had an entirely different result. Mohammed El-Harrak scored the early 1-0 goal, but other than that he was the biggest waster early in the first half. Later on Jan Irjala was the one who spoiled numerous chances. Indeed, this match exhibited a weakness that we have had for the entire season in the offensive end. Of course if Mika Kytöviita had been able to play, he’d probably have scored another two goals like he did in his four previous matches. Also Petri Vadén could have made a huge difference on the wing. On the interwebs, apparently, pointing out these facts is described as whining, but I digress.

No matter how you look at the match, it is clear that we should have scored a few goals in the first half, and that could have put the match into bed. We didn’t, and that allowed FC Melody to first equalize on a counter attack in the first half, and then score a couple more in the second half. I suppose I do not even have to repeat the old cliche here.

The 2-1 goal came from a penalty that resulted from a clear handball by Antti Eijamo. At this point I started to be certain that we would not get a result in this match, and started to get flashbacks from the FC Tribe disaster last year. We weren’t playing very well, and although this time the opponent was of a much higher quality, they weren’t actually playing much better than FC Tribe did back then.

On the 69th minute we got our last break when Melody’s Kai Käpylä talked himself out of the match with a red card. We took control of the match, but did not ever do much at all with our control. Then just over ten minutes later our advantage was gone, when Antti Eijamo was sent off and FC Melody scored 1-3 from another penalty.

The 1-3 goal seemed to be the proverbial final straw. Just before the penalty call, Adnan Omerovic was clearly pushed near the sideline when he was fighting for the ball. The referee signaled for him to get up, and a mere moment later the same player who had pushed Ado jumped when Antti Eijamo challenged him rather recklessly just inside the box. We all felt hard done by the call, but of course talking to the referee or shouting from the stands did us no good. Game over, essentially, even if there was still almost ten minutes left on the clock.

The defensive line and goalie Kalle Heltonen played more or less on their own level, but the rest of the team had maybe the worst performance of the season. Even Juha Kumara, who certainly looked like his heart was in the match, for some reason did not seem to get anything right on the field. The only one who gets a pass is Jacin Dakkaki. He was not sharp at all and far from his usual self, but had not played football in a few weeks and was still recovering from a flu.

Overall, one-on-one situations were played very softly and avoiding contact by most players in both teams, and that made for some awkward football. Ironically, while everybody was trying to avoid injury, two players took red cards and will miss matches at the beginning of the 2014 season for it. After the match the sentiment in the management on both teams seemed to be that this match was not really worth all that. Personally, I’m happy that next year in Nelonen there is only one division, and therefore no extra matches for the Nelonen title.

Now we are finally into the off-season, and while April may seem far away, there will be a lot of exciting news to look forward to. And of course, like last year, you can expect that there will be training matches starting from January. This is a necessity, since the Finnish Cup is expected to again start in February. And in fact, there will even be at least one training match in October, and I expect that the club will announce the details very soon.

In the mean while, I have been sulking in my sorrows for a day, but now it is over, and the wait for next season is on. It promises to be the most exciting yet. And in a sense it is a good thing we are going into the off-season a bit dissatisfied, and are fully aware of the weaknesses that need to be addressed before we start our Nelonen campaign in the spring.

TamU-K – FC Melody 1-3 (1-1)
10 min 1-0 Mohammed El-Harrak
39 min 1-1 Niko Innanen
54 min 1-2 Marko Kalliola (pk)
81 min 1-3 Marko Kalliola (pk)

Discipline:
53 min Antti Eijamo, TamU-K (caution)
69 min Ahmed Lakra, TamU-K (caution)
69 min Kai Käpylä, FC Melody (ejection)
81 min Antti Eijamo, TamU-K (caution)
81 min Antti Eijamo, TamU-K (ejection)