The best away trip of the season – that just about sums it up. The 2-4 (0-1) victory over TP-49 and the late drama in the match were certainly important factors in making the day awesome, but even without those there’s something about traveling by train that fits supporters very well. Yes, the trip to Toijala is just about as short as a trip can be, but that just makes it more intense. Of course the best part of it all was that one of our very own, Markus ”Silkku” Silvennoinen, scored. Twice.

Tomorrow our season starts anew with a match away at TP-49. We have five matches left of the regular season, and during that stretch of five weeks we will have two objectives. Firstly, we have to take enough points from those matches and finish second on the table, but just as importantly, we have to get back into a form where we can compete against the second place team of Nelonen in the Satakunta district. We are in a good condition to reach those goals, especially given the addition of Markus Silvennoinen in the midfield, but it will require a lot of hard work.

I will readily admit it. Even if the loss on Sunday did not exactly come as a surprise, it gave such an empty feeling that it has been hard to write a report about the match. For one, you do not ever want to let Ilves win, but the way the match highlighted our problems was even more devastating. The 1-4 (0-3) result left no room for what-ifs. Based on Sunday’s match, anybody would have to admit that the right team is getting promoted this year. Luckily we too still have a chance.

Today we play another big one. The last time we played against Ilves, the result was a dissatisfying 1-1 (0-0) draw. Little did we know back then that Ilves would go on a ten match winning streak. For us the winning streak lasted only for four matches, and two losses and two ties in the subsequent six matches have resulted in a five-point deficit with respect to Ilves. We no longer control our own fate in terms of promotion, but a win today would put Ilves under a bit of pressure, as their margin for error would be reduced to just one match.

Saturday’s match away at FJK was exactly what we wanted. We made getting three points look easy, and as a supporter I never had to worry. We scored the 0-1 goal early on the 12th minute, and the insurance goal came soon after on the 25th minute. From there on out I had no worries. Granted, FJK had a few chances to score, and if we had conceded there would have surely been some nail-biting. However, we survived ”the most dangerous lead in football” and won the match 0-2 (0-2) quite handily.

A quick look at the Nelonen table shows that we have one game in hand with respect to VaKP and NePa, who are chasing us one and two points behind us, respectively. This afternoon is when we have that match, away at Forssa. As supporters we tend to focus on games in hand alongside points on the table, but the reality is that having a game in hand does not matter at all if you end up losing that match. We have a chance to put ourselves in a good position with respect to those chasing us, but we are by no means there yet.

I called it a must-win and we lost. So now what? Well, that must-win comment was obviously related to guaranteeing promotion by finishing first in Nelonen this year. Now it is no longer in our own hands because Ilves 2 got three points away at TP-49 yesterday, and it is time to shift our goals a little bit. Primarily, we will want to stay close to Ilves, so that if they drop any points, we are within a striking distance. More realistically, our goal is to finish (at least) second on the table, and hope that we get to play a promotion playoff against the second-place team in Nelonen in the Satakunta district. Put simply, there is still a lot to win this season.

A sobering fact: we have not won a match at Pyynikki during the last two months. Okay, we haven’t played there but twice since we beat TP-49 3-0 on June 1st, but that is two winless matches too many. The fortress that we built early on in the season with four wins and one tie with a 12-1 goal differential has taken a couple blows, and getting promoted this season requires fixing that. The rebuilding process needs to start today as we face VaKP at 4 pm. We need everybody to be there to help.

It was not very pretty but it was certainly exciting. TamU-K and NePa battled it out for ninety minutes, and once again neither team was able to score more than one goal. Both of the goals were score early in the first half, and at least looking from my perspective we were the ones who got closer to scoring the winning goal. However, that wasn’t to be, and the result was a 1-1 tie. The match was attended by almost 250 people, and many of them favored NePa. This gave the match a some sense of a real derby – certainly more so than in any previous match that we’ve had at Pyynikki.

It looks like we will have a full bench for tonight’s match. It’s been a long time since that was the case last time, as you will have to go all the way back to May 27th when we played against Ilves. This is not to say all our injury woes are over, but at least we are no longer struggling to get players onto the bench.