I almost feel like the tile should be the entire contents of my match report, but I think I will elaborate a bit. And no, do not get me wrong, the 3-1 loss against VaKP was a huge disappointment, but somehow through the feelings of despair something exceptional came to life. Maybe it was the realisation that it is a miracle that we even have a club to support, let alone one fighting for a third straight promotion, but somehow the last 20 minutes of support last night was some of the best we have ever delivered on an away trip. And we only needed one simple song for that.

The team did their part to help too. We had most of the possession throughout the second half, and had a number of semi-decent opportunities to score. For a moment I felt like we could recover from the two-goal deficit, and even after the 3-0 goal I did not completely lose faith. I wanted to sing loud, because I knew that it could lead to a miraculous come back. And even when it did not, I wanted to show the team that we stand behind them win or lose, and that we still think this could be a promotion season once again. And I also wanted to show that even if it won’t happen, we’ll be singing loud and proud until the end of the season.

So when we were playing the last few minutes of the match and it was clear that we would not get to take any points back to Tampere with us, it was perhaps more about the next matches. I know that the players know that we care, but I want them to feel it too. And so even five minutes after the final whistle we kept on singing. See, a few players were still on the field, and sometimes after a loss you just don’t feel like you can stop until they are all gone. I cannot really explain it, but I tend to feel that way after big matches.

I think the last time I was part of something like that was a few years ago in Panama City after the Seattle Sounders had lost their first leg match in a CONCACAF Champions League tie against San Francisco FC (from the city of La Chorrera, Panama). The result then was 1-0, and it felt like singing until they all went out would help them win back in Seattle a week later. And so they did, but that’s another story for another time and probably another blog as well. TamU-K won’t face VaKP again until much later in the season, but I really believe that the support we showed yesterday will carry us through some future difficulties.

In the end it is easy to say that a couple of blunders inside a couple minutes before 15 minutes were on the clock did us last night. We were never able to recover from the early 2-0 deficit. It would be easy to name a couple few players whose absence or inability to play full 90 minutes really hurt us, but I really don’t want to go into that right now. I’ll just leave it at saying that our season is still in our own hands, and no team will win out anyway. The next time we can affect our faith is on Saturday, when we face FJK in a home match at Pyynikki.

VaKP – TamU-K 3-1 (2-0)
13 min Mikko Heritty 1-0
15 min Arttu Kokkonen 2-0
80 min Masi Rekomaa 3-0
85 min Timo Kauppinen 3-1

Discipline:
55 min Arttu Kokkonen, VaKP (caution)
68 min Jonne Keränen, TamU-K (caution)
70 min Miska Virkki, VaKP (ejection)
89 min Mikko Hiltunen, VaKP (caution)