Vaasa’s Palloseura surprised league leader KuPS and rose from jumbo place to tenth place with their third win of the season. With the win, SJK went level on points with league leader KuPS.
Mika Halonen,
Hinn Hirvonen
The Saturday round of the Football Veikkausliiga started with a real giant surprise, when HJK lost to FC Lahti 0–1 on their home field. He was responsible for the away team’s hit Altin Zeqiri after a good half hour of play.
For HJK, the match was already the third winless in a row. The last win was from KTP almost a month ago.
However, the surprises of the round did not end there.
At home, KuPS had a chance to increase the point difference over HJK to six points, and in the papers of many, KuPS was a sure favorite to win against series jumbo VPS.
However, KuPS’s chase for points got off to a really rare start when the home team’s defense and midfield failed. Vaasa attacker Samu Alanko got the ball for free and ran away.
KuPS topper Ibrahim Cisse decided to stop Alango by questionable means by pulling his legs from under him. At this point, the match had expired by 16 seconds. Referee Joni Hyytä picked up a red card and KuPS had to fight almost the entire match undermanned.
KuPS lasted well over an hour until Savio Roberto shot the ball into the KuPS net. The hit was the winning goal for the Vaasa team and it lifted VPS to tenth place, past Haka and IFK Mariehamn.
– Quite a strange game and different from what we had prepared for. In the first minute, a player flew from a friend to the red court, then we were able to keep a lot of the ball. The intention was to press from above when there is a good seam, but now it was actually done all the time, VPS guard Teppo Marttinen commented to Urheilu.
VPS had to celebrate its rare victory in the middle of a terrible commotion, because the fire alarm started ringing in the team’s booth in the middle of the victory celebration.
– There’s nothing wrong here, apparently the machines just went off, explained the match to the Sports Tour Kari Salmela opened the situation and said that VPS had celebrated the victory in the booth by singing for a long time.
For VPS, the victory was already the second in a row, as in the previous round the team defeated Inter at home 3–0. Also in the previous encounter, it was able to wallow as superior, when the visitors Juho Hyvärinen were driven from the field after an hour.
– I hope the profits will continue for as long as possible. I think our game has been ok, we’ve had bad luck and haven’t scored from our positions. One was enough today, damn good we scored. In light of the statistics, we should have more points, but faith is enough. We have remained calm for our own game, commented Marttinen.
With the win, SJK is second in the series over HJK
KuPS’s annoyance was increased by SJK’s 1–0 win over Honga. With the win, the Seinäjoki people moved up to level points with league leader KuPS and overtook Klub, who bowed to Lahti, to take second place in the league.
However, SJK has played two matches less than KuPS and HJK.
SJK’s winning goal came in the 25th minute and he was responsible for it Jeremiah Streng. The hit was Streng’s fifth of the season.
Was on loan from Arsenal in SJK Ovie Ejeheri played the last one his game in Finland and kept a clean sheet in his farewell match. Ejeher is replaced by a Latvian Krisjanis Zviedriswho will be eligible next week.
Having suffered its sixth loss of the season, Honka continues in fifth place.
HJK–FC Lahti 0–1
Haka–FC Inter 2–2
KTP–Ilves 0–0
KuPS–VPS 0–1
SJK–FC Honka 1–0
You can find the league table at this link.