HJK head coach Toni Korkeakunnas explains why HJK did not win the Finnish championship again this year.
Timo Uusitalo,
Sakari Lund
Less than five months ago, on May 20, HJK’s club management pressed the panic button and gave their coach Ferran to Sibila fired and the sports director also left the door Vesa Mäki. The one who had already been replaced once returned as head coach Toni Korkeakunnas.
The club management of the flagship club of domestic football made mistakes that led to chaos in HJK. Managing director Aki Riihilahti and the rest of the club management and the board can look in the mirror.
After all, HJK has been the sovereign ruler of the Veikkausliiga, for whom only the championship is good.
The season is best described by the fact that in the year HJK led the domestic league only a couple of times.
In terms of gameplay, the biggest drop happened in the follow-up series after the regular season, where HJK won, whose last win was on September 1st – almost five weeks ago.
The championship ran away a week ago on Saturday, when Ilves claimed their first victory in 40 years at HJK’s home arena.
Now on Sunday, Haka beat Klubin Töölö for the first time in 16 years – in HJK’s last football league home match of the season.
So it’s no wonder that some of the Club’s supporters no longer cheered for themselves, but the fans in the end stand shouted in unison “what are you getting paid for” and flashed their own shoes, which were prominently displayed.
Urheilu asked head coach Korkeakunnas why HJK is not the champion this year.
– We didn’t get such a united team from this team. Big risks were taken when quite a lot of players were changed, almost half. Maal’s games have not been managed to be turned in the final series. We have been ineffective. The gas was not quite enough for two (end-of-season) competitions, analyzed the coach.
The university has an agreement
Toni Korkeakunnä still has a coaching contract for next season. He has now replaced the fired head coach for two consecutive seasons. Korkeakunnas reminds that the situation has not been easy for him.
– It goes without saying that next season we will see a completely different level of HJK, when we get to build the team in peace. It would be nice to experience it, Korkeakunnas emphasized.
– Last season we were able to do a miracle when we were able to turn everything around in the middle of the season and win. It is more difficult to repeat the miracle. There are radically less hours when the team changed so much. Of course, many other things were changed, Korkeakunnas said.
– The disappointment is great. Dominated the whole game today, but gave the opponent the first goal, and then it was difficult, as it has been recently because of the inefficiency.
For HJK, bronze is always a disappointment after numerous championship years.
– Now it’s sad that we didn’t win the last home game. Now we have to move on, there is still one league game and the Conference League matches. The championship had already gone before, there’s no point in worrying about it anymore, Korkeakunnas reminded.
HJK has six more games left and its holiday season will likely start on December 19.
– We want to believe that we will continue from the Conference League and that way we will make Finnish football history. Of course, it requires us to play more efficiently. Playing in the conference league is quite a hard achievement for a Finnish team, hinted Korkeakunnas.