Another one of those difficult away matches it was not. The circumstances ahead of the away match against Sastamalan Woima certainly favored us. The home team had had difficulties getting a team together for this match, and eventually were able to do so only by fielding a large number of players that had not played in Nelonen for them this season. Even if they were able to find a full eighteen-man lineup, it was no match to our fourteen players that were able to play in this match. Indeed, the difference in quality on the field was just as big as the 0-13 (0-4) scoreline would suggest.

Despite the clear difference in quality, it took us nearly 20 minutes to score our first goal. Afterwards it is kind of funny to think back to how the possibility of a draw sneaked to many of the supporters’ minds early on in the match, especially considering that we had about a half dozen chances before Niko Saarinen finally put one in. It was his first goal for TamU-K in a competitive match – and it ended up being the game-winning goal. The goal was assisted by Eero Riponiemi, who went on to score the 0-3 and 0-4 goals that put the match beyond any doubt. Unfortunately he was forced to be subbed out after about 60 minutes due to what looked like a twisted knee. Hopefully it does not prove to be anything too severe.

The top scorer in the match was the ever excellent Jan Riikonen, who tallied four goals and two assists. Mika Kytöviita scored three goals and had one assist. Additionally Juha Kumara, Osku Airesto, and Petri Vadén scored one a piece. Kalle Heltonen on goal had one save that I can remember.

I was pleased to see that the team kept playing well even when the match was beyond decided. It seemed that everybody stuck to the game plan and did what the coaches had asked of them. It would be so easy to just start playing around and trying fancy tricks when the scoreline is lots-to-nil, but that would be just disrespectful to the other team as well as everybody else. On the same note, respect to the opponent SW as well: they did their best for the 90 minutes and play never got ugly.

For the stats geeks, this was not the biggest victory in club history. In the TamU-K era that distinction goes to the 14-1 victory over NoPS 3 in 2012. If you include the Tampere United era the largest margin was 14-0 against FC Espoo’s second team in the sixth round of the 2008 Finnish Cup. One can only hope that these records will never be beaten. As fun as it is to watch your own team score a bunch of goals, it is so much more satisfying to win a tight match.

Next the team will have a bit of a break as our series of three away matches won’t continue until Wednesday June 18th, when we meet the local rival PP-70 in Ikuri in Western Tampere. This will be our first and only match on that field this season. After that we will have another weekend without a match before our season continues on Sunday June 29th away at LeKi-futis. The least busy part of the season has begun, and we are at the top of the table for it. Not bad.

In the mean while, our second team will have their next match against the second team of PP-70 on Thursday next week. In that match we might very well see a few first team players who have not gotten a lot of playing time recently. There are many that I can think of, so perhaps we will see the maximum of three players going down for this match. We have not had a lot of movement between our two teams so far, but it seems that now is the time for more of that. Indeed, as far as I’m aware, Eero Sointu is the only player to have played in both teams so far. He played the second half in the recent second team victory over FC HaPa, scoring the final 4-0 goal. I would definitely be happy to see more of that.

SW – TamU-K 0-13 (0-4)
20 min Niko Saarinen 0-1
29 min Jan Riikonen 0-2
35 min Eero Riponiemi 0-3
43 min Eero Riponiemi 0-4
49 min Petri Vadén 0-5
55 min Mika Kytöviita 0-6 (rp)
70 min Juha Kumara 0-7
73 min Jan Riikonen 0-8
75 min Jan Riikonen 0-9
81 min Osku Airesto 0-10
84 min Jan Riikonen 0-11
86 min Mika Kytöviita 0-12
90 min Mika Kytöviita 0-13

Discipline:
54 min Markus Koskinen, SW (caution)