The domestic football season continues on the men’s side with both the promotion qualifiers and the Euro final tournament, but for the Veikkausliiga the medals have now been distributed.
Sports expert Antti Pohja highlights the season’s five most interesting talking points, which at the same time give an indication of where the Veikkausliiga is going in the future.
If you wish, you can also listen to Antti Pohja’s analyzes in audio format for each withdrawal.
1. Clean papers for HJK despite the turbulence
A change of head coach in the middle of the season, a setback in the championship fight and despite that, HJK’s season ended for the fourth time in a row with a championship celebration.
Toni Koskelan replacement Toni at Korkeakunn seemed, at least in the light of the statistics, to have woken up the people of Helsinki.
According to Antti Pohja, despite all the turbulence, HJK’s season was worth a clean sheet. Overcoming difficulties reflected above all the club’s strong culture of winning.
– It is a great place to raise my hat that HJK succeeded in its goals and was able to successfully combine both the Veikkausliiga and the European games despite the backlog of matches. Because HJK finally deserves clean papers. The question is how HJK will develop even bigger from this, says Pohja.
For HJK, the championship and a place in the group stage of the Conference League guarantee a financial jackpot again. Helsingin Sanomat estimatesthat HJK would make a profit of around two million euros this season.
While at the same time, KuPS has made considerable losses financially in recent seasons and therefore the leader of KuPS Ari Lahti announced in Iltalehti that the player budget for the coming season will drop by “hundreds of thousands of euros”, the opponents are even further away from HJK’s resources.
– It is very possible that HJK will not weaken for next year, because they can afford to invest just as much as is needed for the number of playing spots that are needed. The team will again be built with the Euro fields in mind, says Pohja.
2. From Ilves HJK’s toughest challenger “surprisingly quickly”
So who will become HJK’s challenger? In Pohja’s opinion, Ilves, which will move to the new Tammela stadium for next season, can be a viable option surprisingly quickly.
The current season could have turned out to be catastrophic, but in the end Ilves was able to avoid relegation and win the Finnish Cup.
In addition to the new stadium and European games, the new main owner, the Ilves SM league club, creates faith in the future of the heavily defeated club. The former sports director of HJK started as the new sports director this fall Miika Takkula.
– The league ranking this season was in the category “above others”. I still see HJK’s biggest challenger coming from Tampere in the future. You can develop operations with better resources than before. Tampere is a growing economic region and Ilves is Finland’s biggest junior club, Pohja reminds.
– The management of the new stadium is in Ilves’ own hands, which means it creates opportunities outside of football as well. Pohja believes that Ilves can rise to the top of the Veikkausliiga with a quick schedule.
3. There was belief in the background of VPS and it paid off
15 unbeaten matches in a row – the end of VPS’s season is looking for its equal in Finnish premier league football. In the championship series Peter Godly Michael scored seven goals and led the Vaasa team to medals for the first time in ten years.
Above all, the club management looked behind the poor results of the early season and trusted the head coach Jussi Nuorela survived.
– There were no secrets behind the rise, but they trusted their own process, even though there were no results in the early season. The loan paid off, the bottom glows.
The story of VPS also gives faith to other smaller clubs.
– Even with a smaller budget, you can challenge the big ones, if the game process is right. This is how the financial gap can be bridged. VPS played top-level football in the league from the end of the season, Pohja points out.
4. Does the season have to continue in the Euro final tournament?
The Vaasa club’s cinderella story will be complete if, in addition to bronze medals, it is able to achieve a place in the Euro finals starting on Wednesday.
But should such a thing be played at all in the future? For the clubs, the extra euros from the extra games would certainly be fine, so the possibility of a triple series cannot be ruled out. There are no open-ended answers one way or the other, otherwise there would be no need to even discuss the system.
According to Pohja, the division into the championship and challenger series at the end of the season does not automatically guarantee that the tension will remain until the end of the season.
– For example, there can be teams like AC Oulu in the challenger series, whose meaningful matches end well in advance. If the best teams in the series always made it to Europe, then even the middle caste would still have a chance to make it to the top three, Pohja thinks.
5. The number of kicks was surprising – and on the other hand, not
Twelve clubs, seven coach changes – one topic of conversation held its grip throughout the league season. The number of kicks also surprised Antti Pohja, although at the same time the decisions were also often understandable.
– Some of the clubs succeeded, some did not. It seems a lot that the seven clubs were ultimately dissatisfied with the recruitments they had made before the season, Pohja explains.
– Still, it must be remembered that changing the coach is not always a bad option. When people work with each other, things can get stuck, even if there has been success. Then you need a replacement. The most logical place for this is after the season, but sometimes a solution made in the middle of the season is very effective, Pohja continues.