The regular season starts on Sunday with an ”away” match against the second team of Tampereen Palloilijat, or TaPa for short. Being founded in 1921, this is a club with long traditions. They were third in the Finnish first division in 1962, and their youth team were Finnish champions in 1957. Now their first team is in the sixth division (Vitonen), one level above TamU-K. On the hockey side they were Finnish champions in 1931, the first championship for a Tampere-based club, which is no small piece of history in a hockey town where other clubs have since gone on to win 32 additional Finnish championships.

The reason I put ”away” in quotations is that the match is played in the heart of Tampere in Kauppi, just about three kilometers from the dead center of the city and about one kilometer from where I live. Most of our matches this season are against other clubs from Tampere, but as there is no history between us and them, I would not call these derbies. Indeed, of this season’s opponents KaVo was the only one that Tampere United has faced previously. This happened in the fourth round of the Finnish Cup in 2004, with TamU getting a comfortable 0-5 away win at Kyötikkälä stadium.

In the match on Sunday there can be only one goal: three points. We need to get this season to a good start, and we need to build confidence within the team and indeed within the whole club. I don’t believe TaPa is a contender for promotion, so from that point of view too we should be in a good position to get a positive start to the Kutonen season.

Looking at TaPa’s results from last season in Kutonen, their record shows just 4 wins and a whopping 12 losses in 16 matches. Of course I have no information on how their team might have changed since then, so TamU-K needs to be prepared for anything, Also since this is their second team, the strength of their team may vary significantly from week to week. And of course even those four wins show that TaPa can win matches, so TamU-K cannot take anything for granted.

TamU-K has some injury problems and a couple of work-related absences in the match, which means we might see a bit of a makeshift defense. From what I understand, Ahmed Lakra is the only player from the defensive line used in the KaVo match who will be available. This means that Sinikaarti’s player of the year from the 2011 season, Joonas Niemelä, might get a start as a full back. Mika Suonsyrjä is expected to play a defensive position, and with his experience on many positions it is impossible to know how the manager plans to use him, but I would say defensive midfield is the most likely choice, or possibly center back if Lauri Heittola wont recover from his flu in time for the match. In offense we seem to have everybody available, so there the question is which of our several choices will get the most playing time.

The match starts at Kauppi 2 field at 7:30 pm. Supporters plan to start the prematch on the terrace at Kaijakka at least a couple hours before the kickoff. If the weather is nice as is expected right now, personally I might be there very early.

Edit: Kaijakka opens at 4:00 pm and the plan is to meet there then.