In the Europa League, the club will face two coaching legends and two star players, as well as a seasoned Euro team from Bulgaria. The group stage starts on September 8.
Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi faces AS Roma, Real Betis and Ludogorets in the Europa League group stage. The group draw was held on Friday in Istanbul and the group stage starts on September 8.
Club pilot Toni Koskela said during the draw that he was a big fan of Manchester United. The hope of meeting ManU did not come true, but AS Roma and Betis offer the coach the opportunity to test his skills against two legends.
Roma is leading the game Jose Mourinho, who has won three Premier League titles, two Serie A titles and one La Liga title. In addition, the Portuguese is the only coach who has won the Champions League, UEFA Cup, Europa League and Conference League.
Betis has a Chilean in the sticks Manuel Pellegriniwho has led Manchester City to the top of the Premier League and won the Intertoto Cup in Villarreal.
In the following, HJK’s opponents have been reviewed and the first comments of Klubi manager Koskela are also included.
AS Roma gathers the crowd
It has been 21 years since the Roman club’s last Scudetto, or Italian championship. In recent years, the club has fluctuated between 5th and 7th place. In the previous season, Roma was sixth, but only a couple of points away from the Champions League place.
In the spring, however, the jumps were caught by the Conference League victory, when Roma defeated Feyenoord 1–0 in the final. You nailed the solution Nicolo Zaniolo, which has been talked about as the new talisman of Italian football for years. However, serious injuries have slowed down the pace.
Roma’s players have plenty of stars. Striker Tammy Abraham scored 17 goals in Serie A and 9 in the Conference League last season. The Englishman was his team’s top scorer in both competitions and continues in the group.
The fans of the club are excited Paulo Dybala’s attachment. The Argentinian tactician brings more cunning to Roma’s attack.
There is a budding boom around Roma. The Spanish newspaper Marca reports that the club has sold the most season tickets since the 2004–05 season, and the meter already shows more than 36,000.
One of the players’ diamond has charmed in last year’s European Championships Leonardo Spinazzola. The winger’s Achilles tendon let him down mid-tournament against Belgium, but Lasse Lempainen operated on Spinazzola in Turku, and now the star is able to play again. The man has played a total of 163 minutes in the two Serie A matches of the season. A 1-0 win came out of both.
Koskela’s comment: “Mourinho has a trophy cabinet full of different players from several different countries. It’s not everyday to meet him and a team like that.”
Betis direction is up
Real Betis, who hails from Seville, finished fifth last season in the Spanish premier league. The season was the club’s best in years, when the group still won the Spanish Cup. The trophy was Betis’ first in 17 years.
Coach legend Manuel Pellegrini, 68, has gotten the team off to a good start. The man was fired from West Ham at the end of 2019 and took over Betis in the summer of 2020. The opening season ended in sixth place, and last season Betis went one step better. Pellegrini has said that West Ham and Betis have a lot in common. Neither of them is financially capable of destabilizing the biggest clubs in the series, but there are enough fans and they are extremely committed.
Measured by market value, Betis’ gold nugget is French Nabil Fekir. According to Transfermarkt, Fekir is a 40 million euro man. The attacking midfield has not broken through in the national team, but that is explained more by the national team than by his level.
The group’s best-known names also include William Carvalhowho has kept the Portuguese national team’s midfield balanced for years.
Pier Juanmi collected the best goal pot of his career last season, i.e. 20 hits, 16 of which came in the main league. He was the fifth best scorer in the major league and has scored two league goals in two games to start this season.
My 41-year-old companion Joaquin we also remember the Spanish national team. He signed a new one-year contract in the summer and will continue at least this season.
The real Joker card is the midfield Paul Akouokou. A few years ago, the Ivorian represented EIF from Tammisaari on a couple of occasions, until the path took Betis to the reserve team and finally to the first team. Akouokou has mainly been in the role of a substitute player, but his resume also includes 90 minutes in La Liga.
Koskela’s comment: “There is no detailed information yet, but we all certainly have a good idea of Spanish futsal. An extremely high-quality team with balls.”
Europa league standard equipment
Ludogorets has won the Bulgarian championship 11 times in a row since the 2011–12 season. In European quality series, only Rosenborg has been able to do better, which once won 13 Norwegian championships in a row.
The group has started this league season with four wins and one draw.
The championship streak is also directly reflected in Ludogorets’ statistics in European games. The club has played 121 European games in the Champions League and Europa League. And Ludogorets is not just participating in the Euro fields, because there are almost as many wins as losses and the club’s goal difference is positive in both competitions.
In the Euro match that started, Ludogorets beat Sutjeska (Montenegro) and Shamrock Rovers, but lost to Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) and fell to the Europa League side, where Zalgiris (Lithuania) fell in the last qualifying round.
Of course, Ludogorets is not a star sibling like Roma and Betis, but it certainly offers a tough enough challenge for HJK.
Koskela’s comment: “An experienced and tough Euro team, but it doesn’t arouse greater emotions in us Finns.”‘
The Europa League group stage starts on September 8.