Today’s fixture is one of the toughest ones in our calendar this year. We travel to the neighboring city of Valkeakoski to play against the local team VaKP. Last year they finished second on the Nelonen table, just five points shy from promotion and as many as nine points ahead of the third place team, after having lost just once in their primary home, Apia Stadium. This year they have again started out strong, and are at the top of the table with 10 points after four matches played.

A victory tonight would put TamU-K on top of the table, and even a draw would be a very positive result in terms of staying near the top of the table. It’ll probably take a few more weeks before we can tell who will be the top contestants on the table this year, but both teams playing today would surely like to think they’ll be there.

TamU-K seems to go into the match with a very solid line up. Assuming that there has not been any set backs, both Jan Riikonen and Andrea Milanti are back, which adds a lot of offensive options and creativity, something that was lacking in the NePa match last week for the most part. This also allows putting Jacin Dakkaki into the striker position, where he has always been much stronger. Defensively we are almost intact; however, Ilkka Innola is out due to family reasons, and Kalle Heltonen will get his first start for us this season.

Last year we played against VaKP in the Finnish Cup, and lost the second round fixture 0-1. We had to play the second half with just ten men after Mika Kytöviita had been sent off for his retaliatory push on a VaKP player. We still dominated long stretches of the match, and everybody seemed to think we were the better team then and would have deserved to win. There is a clear sense of unfinished business ahead of this match, and this should work in our favor.

As away trips go, today’s is the kind of trip we could only dream about in our Kutonen season two years ago. In fact, even last year it was a rarity to visit an actual stadium. Add two teams fighting for the spot at the top of the table, and it feels a lot like the old days. They will even be selling beer at the stadium. which is a real rarity in the lower leagues. I do expect more than 40 away supporters at this match – I hope they won’t run out of beer.