Wednesday morning has barely dawned when the Töölö football stadium is already running at full speed.
The party hum of the weekend has clearly been shaken off. Just three days earlier, HJK’s women secured their 18th Finnish Cup championship in history, but long ago the head coach Arttu Heinonen did not allow his protégés to celebrate.
– Monday was rest, Tuesday was restorative training and today we will go hard again, captain Maria Roth confirm.
On Sunday evening, however, the joy was taken away – or those who could took it.
– The next morning I had the Swedish writings, so I couldn’t celebrate so terribly. On my own ride, I set off pretty quickly to get ready so that I could sleep at least a little. It went just fine, Lilli Halttunen laughs.
Honka from Espoo fell in the final of the cup with a score of 2–1, but according to rumors, the trophy was still found in Espoo in the morning.
– According to me, it started in the evening and ended up in Tammela home in Espoo. I woke up next to the trophy, but it has been well taken care of, assures head coach Heinonen.
Now, however, the focus is on the weekend. On Saturday, HJK has the first chance to secure the Finnish championship after a five-year break.
The opponent is the league runner-up Kuopio Palloseura, who has dominated the league in recent years and won the previous three championships. In the previous two autumns, HJK has had to settle for silver.
Last fall, HJK also had to watch from the sidelines at the Olympic Stadium as KuPS lifted the Cup trophy after a match that ended in a crushing 5–0 victory.
However, now the parts have changed. KuPS’s season has gone well, head coach Valtteri Kumpuniemi slower than expected in the command, but in the papers of many, HJK was already a stronger champion favorite at the start of the season.
HJK has dominated the league to their heart’s content. It suffered its first loss of the season in mid-September, when HPS pulled off a longer streak in the local competition with a 2–0 win.
New background company
HJK got a new joint-stock company behind it this season, which made it possible, among other things, to double the player budget.
The club’s women’s player budget of EUR 150,000 is the third largest after KuPS (EUR 200,000) and Åland United (EUR 178,000). The team has five coaches, a physiotherapist and a video analyst, of which only the latter is part-time.
– Through our own joint-stock company, we have received chips for the development of everyday life. The operation has gone in a more professional direction all the time and we have also been able to share the workload among the high-quality background team, Heinonen opens.
According to Captain Roth, success is based on hard work.
– We have done a lot of work. The training time has changed, nowadays we train in the morning. Little things have been done better all the time, which is why we are able to train a little better and harder. When I came to the club, we were going hard, and now we’re going a little harder, Roth commented.
We also go hard in Wednesday’s training right from the warm-up. Coach Liisa-Maija Rautio instructs you to run at 80 percent of your maximum heart rate.
The players’ heart rate interval and load are monitored in real time. Some have to be stopped when the heart rate immediately rises above the desired limit.
The intense intensity in training is also visible in the games. In many matches, HJK has run to cancel its opponent.
– We have reached the point where our training is heavier than the weekend game, Heinonen begins.
– The intensity in the games has really varied. It in no way meets the standards of an international match. In the winter, we played a training match against AIK of the Damallsvenskan and it was harder and faster than any League match in the season, Heinonen points out.
Stockholm-based AIK is currently the last of the fourteen teams in the Swedish league, and is rapidly falling out of the league.
The HJK pilot is waiting for the reform of the National League. Next season, only eight teams will play in the league instead of the current ten.
The high level of demands in training has also developed individuals. Heinonen ranks Roth as one of the season’s successes.
– His development curve has been incredible. All the test results show that Roth has never been in such condition before.
Defender Roth arrived from Ilves to HJK in 2018 and has represented HJK ever since – except for the 2022 season, when he took a break from football.
– It was more of a mental break. I felt that I could no longer invest in this on the spiritual side. I had to go a little further to wonder at the world and get to know myself again. I knew I still wanted to play. It was really good for me, since then I have been able to give even more to the team.
Good situation
27-year-old Roth represents a more experienced guard in the National League and HJK.
However, many of the Club’s young players have managed to break into the starting line-up and make their breakthrough.
– Last season we revamped the ring a bit. Many experienced players quit. Last year we drove young people in and learned how to win, Heinonen times.
Lotta Kalske already got responsibility last season, but this season the net has swung 12 times. In the summer, he received his first call-up to the A national team.
Lilli Halttunen, who suffered from injuries in the last couple of seasons, has scored one less goal in the league.
– Of course, it’s always tempting to do more, but you have to remember that we’re in the same gang. If the other is in a better place, then we pass, Halttunen laughs and answers the question about the two’s competition setup.
Halttunen believes that his own mood is partially due to the fact that so far the season has gone without injuries.
– In the gym, I have paid even more attention to side training.
The winner of the goal exchange after last season Lotta Lindström headed to England, and this summer a defender moved to bigger arenas Jasmin Mansaraywhose career continues in the ranks of the Italian Inter.
The future of HJK also looks good, because in addition to the women’s representative team, the B-girls and the Academy team playing in the First Division won their respective leagues.
However, the rules of the Swedish Football Association prevent HJK Akatemia from being promoted to the league next season. VIFK, KTP and TPS are fighting for a rise.
Wednesday’s women’s training includes four players from the Academy who play in the First Division. They have also shown that they are hungry for a place in the representative office: for example, a 15-year-old Rebecca Viljamaa scored a goal in his league debut at the end of August after only being on the field for a minute.
– We have a really wide and high-quality ring, Heinonen admits.
– We want to set certain standards as high as possible, stay there and hopefully others will also compete in it.
So far, only the Kuopio Football Club has been able to make a similar investment, which started the season with a 50,000 euro smaller budget than the previous season.
HJK has won all the meetings between the two this season. As a pre-favorite, it will also go into Saturday’s fight, where it will secure the championship with a win. KuPS also has big stakes in the match – it is now second in the series, but only three points ahead of HPS. Second place in the league qualifies for a place in the women’s new one in the Euro competition, which starts next season.
On Saturday, HJK will be able to secure the championship possibly even in front of a record audience – more than 3,000 people had already claimed tickets through a partner on Wednesday. The series’ current audience record is 1,833 viewers.
– Yes, it brings additional charging and creates an energy boost! Heinonen decides.