Yesterday we had for the first time in a long time as many as four first-team players on the bench for a training match, and the result was seven goals scored in an easy 7-0 (4-0) victory over the second team of Ilves. The match was played in Kauppi, the first outdoors match for us this spring. The metaphor about young horses on spring pasture came to my mind as the team scored three goals in less than 15 minutes. During and after the match it was great to see the goal-scorers’ faces shine. Some of these goals were real beauties too.

During the past week my focus has shifted from the first team to other areas in our growing club. I already wrote about the second adult team taking the next step by going to a competitive division this year, but this week has been full of stuff related to our youth teams as well. It might be that my shift of focus has been in part a way to not think about all the losses the first team has suffered in training matches this off-season. The latest loss took place away at Jyväskylä against Palokan Riento last weekend with, a 1-0 loss with a goal at the dying moments. I know that the results do not tell the whole story and I remain very optimistic about the upcoming season in Nelonen, but amidst all the losses it has been better to focus on other stuff.

Those who have been following this blog carefully know that TamU-K will have a second competitive adult team this season. They will enter the bottom division just like our first team did two seasons ago. There will be four subdivisions in Kutonen this year, and the one where our second team will play looks like a tough one.

I haven’t written match reports for non-competitive matches this season, but today the 1-0 (1-0) result against TP-T is not a good reflection of the events on the field, so I decided to drop a few lines. Yes, we lost the match, but the second half was full of great goal-scoring chances for us, and for long periods of time TP-T had difficulties to even bring the ball to our half in a controlled manner. Of course, they had a few chances too, but the typical situation where the opponent eventually scores when you do not finish your own chances never happened in the second half.

Finnish winters are long, and for football supporters they are especially excruciating. Couple weeks ago the lead-up to the Finnish Cup match gave us a little glimpse of what is coming ahead. However, with the early exit from the cup we still have two long months until

competitive matches resume.

The Finnish Cup match against LeKi-futis was just as difficult in terms of team play as I predicted, and as a result we are out of the competition before it really even started for us. The scoreline was a predictably tight 1-2 (1-1), our only goal coming from a kick from the spot. So much for the big dreams, and it’s back to the drawing board for the team. It would be in my nature to let this match make me pessimistic about the upcoming season,

but the only conclusion that can actually be drawn at this point is that there is still a lot of work to be done before we are ready for the Nelonen season. And even that is something we all knew before the match.

Ask a football supporter what they think about the current state of the Finnish Cup, and the most likely answer is that it’s a disgrace. Starting the competition in the dead of winter has made many teams in lower divisions decide to not participate at all, making it hard to describe it as a competition for all Finnish clubs anymore. You can read more about this in the blog post that I wrote last year, where the only thing that needs to be added is that only 152 teams participate in Finnish Cup this year. That is only one fewer than last year, but far less than half of what we used to get just five years ago.

Back in Seattle, a good friend of mine and a co-president of the Emerald City Supporters, Greg Mockos, often likes to talk about being a part of something bigger than yourself. This is very well put as to me it is the essence of team sports. Maybe often more so for the supporters than the players or club officials, but in TamU-K the idea applies across the club more than in most other clubs. Today I had a chance to witness another confirmation of this spirit as I saw our F9 boys play a couple of futsal matches in the morning.

Final preparations for Monday’s Finnish Cup second round fixture against LeKi-futis are going on, and as an important piece of the puzzle, the club announced six player contracts today. The team now has two goalies, seven defenders, seven midfielders, and six forwards. I imagine that not many additions will be made to this group of 22 players during the spring, as it seems like any new addition would have to be a profile player that goes straight into the starting eleven.

In terms of climate Finland is not an ideal place for football. In the long winter we get by with full-size indoors fields as well as heated artificial turfs outdoors, but sometimes nature does its best to throw a wrench in your plans. We had already had an away match against FC Rauma canceled in January, and on Sunday we played a training match outdoors in Valkeakoski in conditions that probably left everybody wondering if there was any sense in playing the match. It was slippery, it was too damn cold, the ball kept getting stopped in piles of snow, and markings on the pitch were not visible for the most part (see the official match report for a few photos). The result was a 1-1 (1-1) draw, Risto Niskanen scoring the equalizer for us at about the 30 minute mark, but the result hardly mattered even if tweets from the homebound head coach and team captain might have suggested otherwise.