On Sunday TamU-K has everything on the line. Personally, I have been dreaming about promotion to Vitonen for more than a year now. In two days we’ll be playing the match that can finally make this dream come true.

The lead-up to the promotion final this week has been amazing. There is a buzz around our club that is unprecedented. It almost feels unreal, and would have been tough to imagine at the beginning of the 2011 season when TamU-K played its first matches in recreational football. The promotion final has been mentioned in various local and national media outlets, and of course the club itself has been putting out numerous news stories too. One of the more exciting ones for those who will be able to attend the match is the news that one of our sponsors, Restaurant 4 Vuodenaikaa, will be catering the event with French style gourmet hot dogs. I heard that the price will be set at 4 euros for the delicious home made sausages served with French baguette and home made mustard. And the nicest part: all proceeds will go to TamU-K.

For those who wont be able to attend the match there is even more exciting news. There will be an attempt to video stream the match live. The success will depend on how well mobile data will work at Pyynikki Stadium. If all goes well, you will be able to watch the match on TamU-K’s Ustream channel. This service is produced by Petteri Tyni who runs Styntty Channel, a source for many local football events. And if the video fails, those who understand Finnish can tune into Vastapallo’s web radio production.

Naturally the activity on TamU-K’s facebook page has been higher than ever before. For example, as of this writing 163 people have joined the match event on Facebook, and the number of people invited is more than 1100. As a comparison about 400 people were invited to the promotion semifinal against FC PaPo, and 87 responded with a yes. Of course Facebook numbers do not necessarily reflect what is actually going to happen, but the huge increase in activity is surely a sign of something real. I would not be surprised if we got more than 300 spectators at the match, which would be an amazing number. And who knows, maybe it could even go well beyond that.

The opponent in the promotion final is Tahmelan Vesa (TahVe), who have a history going all the way back to 1919. There is not a great deal of information available on the history of the club online, but it looks like they participated in the Finnish Cup at least in the mid 1950s. This fall they have already won two promotion matches. They played in one of the subdivisions that had fewer teams than the others, and therefore played an extra promotion playoff round. They won against the second team of ParVi 1-11 away at Parola in the first round, and then beat Dynamo United 2-3 in an away match played in Tampere. They were 2-0 down at the half, and turning that match seems like a sign that TahVe are a dangerous team.

For a lot of the players in TahVe the primary sport is floorball, a type of floor hockey that is very popular in Finland. Indeed, about ten of their players also play in SC Classic, who right now have one of the best floorball teams in the country. Their biggest star is Lassi Vänttinen, who has been a key player for the national team too, for example scoring a hat trick in the World Championship final in 2008 when Finland beat Sweden 7-6. Floorball may not be the most serious of sports, but nevertheless being at the very top in that sport requires a high level of athleticism. The fact that TahVe has a lot of players who play together in two different sports also means that their players know each other very well, which should be a great advantage for them.

TamU-K needs to concentrate on their own playing though. The promotion semifinal last Sunday left a lot of room for improvement, especially in the offensive end. In particular, our passing needs to be better if we are going to battle for promotion on Sunday. I have a lot of faith with our quality in the back, but that wont help us if we do not score a few goals. The team of course has a tough job of keeping their feet on the ground amidst all the attention around the match, but the good thing is that they have been getting used to having supporters and the attention that it entails throughout the season.

And talking about supporters, we are going to start our prematch at Oluthuone Esplanadi (Kauppakatu 16) at 4 pm. Our march to Pyynikki Stadium will start a 6:20pm, right in time to get some gourmet hot dogs and prepare to sing TamU-K to promotion. Everybody is welcome to join us either in the bar or just for the march to the stadium.