Finland League Cup 20th March

[Puntteri]

League Cup Finland 20^th March 2010 Table The group is nearing the end in the league cup, four teams go to quarter-finals which will be played 31.3, the semifinals 7.4 and the final will be played right before the Leagure start 10^th of April. The winner gets a bit of glory and a small money reward, the main emphasis in this competition is getting semi-important pre season matches for all teams and nothing is risked. KuPS - Tampere U klo 13.00 CET KuPS are far from that bad team as the table suggests, and for last week´s game vs. Haka they welcomed back last´s season sensation and by far the most important player for their team in the League – a Nigerian striker Dickson. Also Ollo came back to strenghten the midfield, and with a solid pre-season, some new signings and experience from last season´s survival battle KuPS is not at all doomed for relegation battle even people in general seem to think so. It is worrying that they have not scored even once in their 4 league cup games, but last time was the first encounter with almost the best starting eleven, and they were the most unfortunate team that I have seen in a long time and lost 0-1 after having three goals disallowed. KuPS have best possible squad to choose from, some players are with the U17 – national team and some others with the reserve team, the only injury is defender Miikka Turunen but he would had been bench material. Tampere United usually suffer a lot of injuries during pre season but this year it looked a lot better, until last week when two of their starting 11 defenders Jari Nikkilä and Sakari Saarinen got injured. TamU won the Lahti Cup in January but since then their performances have been very disappointing, and not getting to the quarter-finals from this weak group would be shameful. I am not usually suggesting totals too often, but there have been too much overreaction for the KuPS results and not scoring and I would be suggest here over 2.5 unless it was not snowing quite heavily today in Kuopio. Asian handicap price limits here, take a look at your own bookie if there is anything of value. There are often quite big market movements during the last hour before the kick-off, and usually there are no grounds to it so never follow the market in Finnish football league matches. Never. VPS - AC Oulu klo 13.00 CET VPS need to win to get to the play-offs while AC Oulu have surprisingly already secured their place, a goor achievement by the newly promoted club. This is the only match that is played indoors this round, and in the indoor matches the home advantage is far bigger than usual which favours here the home side with more motivation. However, VPS have big problems in their squad up front as there is only striker available, and he is unexperienced but talented youngster Kim Böling. Jussi Aalto, Valtter Laaksonen and Antonio Inutile are unavailable for this match. AC Oulu have no big injury worries, Juha Majava, Tommi Kauppinen and Joonas Pennanen have missed training this week and Joni Mäkelä is on U-17 international duty. Oulu are testing two players, experienced mf Mika Hänninen and Cameroonian Ngambe Ngambe. VPS are never a goal machine and the missing strikers do not help at all, but the motivation and form and big home indoor advantage talk in favour of VPS, but personally I never have backed them too easily if they need to score, their defense is solid but as favourite they are not my cup of tea. JJK - FF Jaro klo 13.00 CET JJK were lucky to escape relegation last season but this time there should not be such worries. They signed a good coach from Honka – Kari Martonen – and four key players for defense (Okkonen, Pasoja, Tumanto, Hyyrynen) midfield and attacking departments are they are at least safe, probably somewhere in the midtable after the season is over. They are again testing Eetu Muinonen for midfield and in my understanding they are only talking about money, the midfielder is definitely good enough. JJK have started the league very well to a surprise of the big audience but not to me, and they are definitely favorites against FF Jaro, who is again estimated to be in the bottom four. Before signing Alexei Eremenko and ZéZé from Metallist Harkov they lacked a bit of material, but Eremenko is a top class player and the probably the best in the league when fit and motivated, and there is all the reason to be more happy in the Jaro camp again. FF Jaro had ”frozen” the 14 shirt that had been worn by Alexei Eremenko Sr – the current head coach and the father of the Jr, but they have decided to ”melt” it now and the Junior will wear the legendary number 14 again. ;) Against Tampere Utd the material was obviously wide enough at the Jaro bench, but this time the things have improved a bit and Jaro have their chances. Sarajärvi, Matrone and Papa Niang will miss the game from Jaro, the only absentee from JJK is defender Tuomas Latikka. The temperature is at 0, there is some snowing at the moment in Jyväskylä. FC Inter - IFK Mariehamn klo 16.00 CET The winner goes for the play-offs. Inter miss both goalies again (Bantamoi and Monsalve), defenders Aho and Sanevuori and striker Grot, but the key striker Timo Furuholm is available. IFK Mariehamn will test Frenchman Médoune Gueye and Russian Maxim Krychanov for the center-back position. Inter are again slightly improving as the season is getting closer, and at home their solid defense should have no big worries with IFK strikers, and their 3^rd choice goal-keeper Eemeli Reponen has been good enough for the league cup matches. The motivation of IFK away remains a mystery, they do not admit it, but it looks like they could not care less how they play away from home and they have done quite a lot of experiments and testing. Inter is the favourite, but because of their goal-scoring problems and some missing defenders and unexperienced gk I can not give them more than 51 % chances for a home win. Outdoor match at 0 temperature. Value in Tampere Utd - 0,25 @ 2.25 (limit 1.93) and VPS - 0,5 @ 2.05 ( limit 1.92)

[sharpshot7]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March Thank you for the write ups:clap Hopefully you will give more thoughts when the league starts:ok

[Puntteri]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March the feedback was so kind that I will give the price limits as well ;)

	KuPS	Tamu
-0,5	3,57	1,39	0,5
-0,25	2,97	1,51	0,25
0	2,54	1,65	0
0,25	2,07	1,93	-0,25
0,5	1,75	2,33	-0,5
0,75	1,53	2,87	-0,75
	VPS	AC Oulu
-0,75	2,25	1,8	0,75
-0,5	1,92	2,08	0,5
-0,25	1,58	2,71	0,25
0	1,35	3,89	0
0,25			-0,25
0,5			-0,5
0,75			-0,75
	JJK	FF Jaro
-0,75	2,43	1,7	0,75
-0,5	2,04	1,96	0,5
-0,25	1,69	2,44	0,25
0	1,45	3,23	0
0,25			-0,25
0,5			-0,5
0,75			-0,75
	Inter	MIFK
-0,75	2,33	1,75	0,75
-0,5	1,96	2,04	0,5
-0,25	1,61	2,63	0,25
0	1,37	3,69	0
0,25			-0,25
0,5			-0,5
0,75			-0,75

[dugaric]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March

KuPS - Tampere U klo 13.00 CET

What happend with this game ???

[Puntteri]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March

What happend with this game ???

Postponed due heavy snowfall.

[Mozzi]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March Wow, Honka are evens to beat AC Oulu tomorrow - absolute steal! The bookies must have only looked at stats from this year's Liiga Cup 'cause Honka are twice the side that Oulu are irrespective of how both sides have played in this competition! I'll be taking some of those odds!

[Puntteri]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March True, at first glance the price looks good but in fact it is not, my limit for Honka win is @ 2.08. Huge home advantage in the indoor arena, Honka is a bit shy visitor and Oulu is more or less unchanged from last season which also explains their good results in the league cup. The spirits are high in the Oulu camp. Agree with the class difference, but for instance last week Honka top scorer and key man Hermanni Vuorinen was not playing because of a minor knock and if he is still out today there is no way to take Honka at evens. Finnish bookie offer 2.05 for Honka win, and with their winning margins it tells a story of its own. My limits below;

	AC Oulu	FC Honka
-0,25			0,25
0			0
0,25	2,34	1,74	-0,25
0,5	1,92	2,08	-0,5

[bernar]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March

Huge home advantage in the indoor arena

Why do you think that Oulu has huge home advantage? Only because indoor arena? They played well in the group stage, but quality of teams in these two groups is very different ( you mentioned that already on BetAdvice forum): on their home ground they beat FF Jaro ( 3:2... They took a 2-0 lead, allowed Jaro to equalize) and FC Haka. Also, played 0:0 with KuPS.

Honka is a bit shy visitor

I agree with this one. Honka did not play sufficiently convincing... But they played against Inter, IFK ( 0:0 and 1:1) and maybe only loss from MyPa is little bit disappointing result.

Oulu is more or less unchanged from last season which also explains their good results in the league cup.

Honka is not much changed too... Joel Perovuo went to Djurgården and Jarkko Värttö stayed in Lahti... As far as I know, that`s it... No one else came to club, or left the club... In my locals, odds on Honka are between 2.05-2.10.... For me, there is some value in 2.10 on AW... Good luck to you both... Greetings...

[Puntteri]

Re: Finland League Cup 20th March In general the stats of matches played indoors in this cup were shocking, Oulu is not alone with this indoor home advantage. Of course the stats lie as always and in most cases the home team was also deservedly the favourite. Only TamU lost at home when played indoors, and they have other serious issues of their own. The other matches today are played outdoors unless it starts raining men.