These players dazzled in the National League – an expert explains why the trio of medals is the same as last season

The National Football League ended with the Kuopio Football Club’s championship celebration for the third year in a row. Urheilu’s experts Essi Sainio and Hanna Ruohomaa put together their own field of stars.

Urheilu’s football expert Essi Sainio not surprised that at the end of the National League season, the top three teams are the same as a year ago. KuPS was able to lift the championship trophy for the third time in a row, when the silver medals went to HJK again and the bronze medals to Åland United.

The trio’s success is explained, among other things, by the teams’ financial resources.

– At the beginning of the season, the clubs’ budgets were published, and now we can see that the medalists are the top three in the budget list as well. They are big and meaningful things, says Sainio.

Experts Essi Sainio and Hanna Ruohomaa At the end of the season, they assembled Urheilu’s all-star field, to which they selected players who excelled during the season.

Sainio and Ruohomaa named FC Honga as the surprise team of the season, above all their goalkeeper Sofia Mannerin thanks to. Honka was fourth in the series, just one point away from the bronze team Åland.

– The continent was not a difficult choice for the star field. Honka has surprised and conceded few goals, and Sofia Manner has been the main reason for that. He came back to Honka from Iceland and has performed in such a way that he has kept his team up. Thanks to that, Honka is about at the top, Ruohomaa said.

The champion team KuPS was well represented in the star-studded field of experts. Among other things, Sainio and Ruohomaa were fired up by the defender Anni Hartikain, who has risen to a big role during the season. The striker who won the pass exchange Lavdije Begollin According to Sainio and Ruohomaa, the catches have been star field level, but a teammate Gentjana Rochi caught a longer stroke in a steady turn.

HJK’s rookie striker Lotta Lindström19, was the clear number one in the goal exchange of the season with 17 goals and therefore the experts’ obvious choice for the star.

– When you look at Roch’s season and the arc of the drama, he has grown tremendously as a player this season. And Lotta Lindström cannot be left out, because she won the goal exchange. It will be really interesting to see if HJK ​​can keep him. The starting point for the next season can be more difficult, because as a young player he needs to prove his level again, says Sainio.

TPS had to qualify for the league

The top teams had no competitive input in the final round. Instead, at the tail end of the league, PK-35 and Turku Palloseura struggled to avoid the league qualification, with the latter’s fate being the qualification. TPS lost its final match of the season to Ilves 0–2 in Turku, while PK-35 crushed ONS from Oulu 8–1. ONS finished last in the series and fell directly to Ikkö.

The two experts agreed that TPS, which is struggling for its place in the series, has been the biggest disappointment of the season compared to expectations.

Jyväskylä’s JyPK will advance to the National League as the winner of the First Division. PKKU from Kerava challenges TPS in the league qualification.

The last meeting between the medal teams KuPS and Åland United in Kuopio started quickly, when there were four goals in the first eight minutes of the match and the situation was quickly tied at 2-2. After a quarter of a game, KuPS Wilma Forsblom hit to give the home team a 3–2 lead.

The next time the net swayed only in the second half, when KuPS Ana Paula Silva Santos improved the lead to 4–2 ten minutes before the end of regular time. Åland narrowed it down to 3-4 in the last minutes, but did not manage to get back on level terms.

In the other matches of the final series of the final round, Honka beat HJK 1–0 and HPS PK-35 Vantaa 3–2.