Yesterday’s away match against JanPa was our worst one in the competitive season. We hardly deserved to win, but with a bit of luck and lots of key saves by Ilkka Innola, the score was 1-2 in our favor. With that we are going to a two-week break without having dropped any points, and our nearest rival ViiPV is seven points behind us despite having played one more match than we have.

The bad performance was probably a result of multiple factors. We still had multiple absences, and had to play with a makeshift back line, especially after Otto Pitkänen got injured. All credit to head coach Mika Suonsyrjä and Heikki Wilen, who fought through pain and exhaustion, but these two are not the players we want to see playing big minutes at the back. With Suonsyrjä playing full 90 minutes and Mika Kanerva not able to make the match, this was our first match without a coach on the bench, which must have been a factor too. Also, with only one substitute for the majority of the match, the humid weather did not help at all. Even the long grass on the field seemed to work against us.

However, in the end those are all excuses. The bottom line is that we should have played better, and that we need to play better in order to not drop points when matches resume towards the end of July. Indeed, our starting lineup yesterday was a strong one for this level. I have a particularly hard time explaining how almost all of our set plays in the final third seemed to result in a dangerous counter attack, often a three against two or a two against one situation. One of these resulted in the 1-0 goal at the half-hour mark.

Luckily two of those set plays resulted in goals. The 1-1 equalizer towards the end of the first half was an own goal from a long throw-in from Mika Kytöviita, and the 1-2 winning goal at the hour mark was shot in with force by Juha Kumara from another throw-in by Kytöviita. This time the ball flew over all of the other players in the box, and Kumara had an open shot near the far post.

Now it is time to put this match behind us and enjoy the summer for a while. Our next match is another away match, a trip to Lammi on July 18th. Hopefully by that time a few of our injured players will be back.

JanPa – TamU-K 1-2 (1-1)
30 min 1-0 Jukka-Pekka Toivonen
37 min 1-1 Santeri Kedonperä (og)
59 min 1-2 Juha Kumara

Discipline:
10 min Mika Suonsyrjä, TamU-K (caution)
22 min Riku Laitinen, JanPa (caution)
65 min Juha Kumara, TamU-K (caution)
73 min Zerihun Tuomela, JanPa (caution)
77 min Santeri Kedonperä, JanPa (caution)