Today was a huge day for the club as our first youth team played their first official match in futsal. I was one of the few non-parents in attendance, and watching the pure joy on the boys’ faces gave me a great feeling. Add the pride I felt about our club growing, and you’ll probably understand how I’m almost at a loss of words.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with one of the coaches of the team, Juha Kumara (who is of course also a player in our first team), and he was talking about how the results do not matter and how this is all about the boys having fun. And while I certainly agree with the sentiment, when we were up 3-2 just a minute or two from time, you could not have told this to the boys on the field and especially those waiting for their turn on the bench.

As it turned out, the result in the first match against Ilves was a 4-2 victory despite being 0-2 down at the half. A gutsy, TamU-like comeback in the second half, and a victory over one of the teams from the biggest club in town. In the second match there was much less of a question who were the better team and the result was a very comfortable 5-0 victory over Ylöjärven Ilves (a different club from a neighboring city).

I do have to confess something, and perhaps this is where I reveal a bit of my own naivete. Namely, I was thoroughly surprised by both the technical and tactical abilities of these nine-year-old boys. Indeed, both matches were very entertaining, and I look forward to seeing more of these matches this winter.

*****

In other news from the club, the first team started winter training last week. As many as 25 players gathered for the first team meeting of the winter, and 21 of them were able to participate in the training session that followed. Head coach Mika Suonsyrjä told me that he is very impressed with the group that has been put together, but for now he wont give names of new players that have not yet signed a contract. Yesterday I also asked full back Antti Eijamo what his impressions from the first training were, and he said that despite the coaching staff talking about taking it easy until January, nobody seemed to be holding anything back. I suppose the new guys want to show that they should be signed, and the old guys want to show that they still belong to the team too.

This winter all five Tampere-based clubs in Nelonen will play training matches against each other in a so-called winter series. It is unofficial of course, but serves as a good way to prepare for the season. As far as I have understood, all matches will be on Saturday mornings at 8 am in Pirkkahalli. The time may sound a little crazy, but the fact of the matter is that in previous years clubs in Nelonen did not have any opportunities to train in Pirkkahalli, the best indoors facility in town. In other words, this is a huge step forward for all of us. The matches start in December, and the club will announce more details when they are ready.

Our adult futsal team is also going to start their season soon, on Sunday December 8 at 10:50 am to be precise. The team plays in a recreational league, and all matches are played in the less than supporter-friendly Rahola facility. The plan indeed is mostly to offer people within the club a chance to play in a blue shirt through the winter. Secondarily, we might start a futsal team in a competitive division next season, and of course having this recreational team this winter makes it easier to do that.

Finally, the new TamU-K wall calendar is ready, and is available for purchase in the TamU-K webstore. The price is 10 euros plus shipping (2 euros within Finland). This time the pictures in the calendar are from matches played last season (click here for samples), so there will be no Movember staches or bare upper bodies this time. I’ll leave it up to each of you to determine whether that is a plus or minus.