Welcome back to the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. It's Finland, where i'm currently in the role as Manager of Kuopion Palloseura, or KuPS for short.
I've freshened up the layout of this blog to hopefully make it easier to read, and have opted to split this update into two halves, this being the first instalment. I've also added a recap section in case you've missed any of the other save updates. Comments and feedback welcome.
The journey so far...
2018 - started unemployed (Sunday League experience, no badges) before getting the job at Nosaby IF in the Swedish Second Division East on 3 August 2018. Took over with 9 games to go and secured a 9th placed finish.
2019 - finished runners up in the league, enough to make the playoffs which we went on to win to secure promotion to the Swedish First Division South. May MOTM Award winner
2020 - stormed the league and won the title against all odds to win automatic promotion to the Swedish First Division Elite. 2020 MOTY Award winner
2021 - after a terrible start and a struggle to sign the players needed, I resigned my post. Took the job at KuPS in the Finnish Premier League on 25 July 2021. Finished 7th in the league and reached Second Qualifying around of Europa League. They also won the Finnish Cup before I took over
2022 (present day) - season aims are to finish "around the top" of the Finnish Premier League and reach the Semi-final of the Finnish Cup. There's no Europa League aims at this stage as i didn't qualify via the league last year and so will need to win the Finnish Cup to qualify for this years competition.
Close-season
I covered most of our off-season dealings last time so not too much to add here. The squad is in place and I have my customary 22 players, 2 for each position, all in the door and being put through their paces in training.
My youth intake was nothing to shout about, just the one decent prospect but doubt he'll get near the first team unfortunately. Our Youth facilities leave a lot to be desired and so I've started scouting and signing my own potential stars for the future. I'm pleased with a couple of CDs and a CM that we now have on the books and I'll try and get them loaned out ASAP for some match experience.
The only other item of note is that I've successfully completed my training course and am now the proud owner of a National C Licence which is prominently hanging above my imaginary desk in my fictional office.
Pre-season
More off-the-field shenanigans marred our preseason training as my new captain, Karjalainen, our star RW from last year, decided I was a fool for selling Penalainen (the AMC I got rid of). Being the captain, he's turned out to be quite influential in the dressing room and he successfully managed to turn half the team against me. This is the group of players who think I can't cut the mustard as it is and so now things really have gone from bad to worse.
And just to add to my woes, I've made a huge mistake in my desperate attempt to sign a decent central midfielder. I'm only permitted to include 3 Non-EU players in the match day squad and so opted to only look at Europe based players for the role. Mandovic is Montenegrin so no issues there, except that with all this Brexit chat, i didn't realise that Montenegro weren't in the EU? So it turns out he won't be able to play alongside my Brazilian superstar who i have on loan for the season, and instead have had to settle for a mediocre Finnish lad who's only 2 stars according to my coaches.
Before i get on to our performances in the friendlies, i need to explain how the league and cup games work here, which is a bit different to any other country I've managed in before. The Finnish Cup has a qualifying round where teams are seeded into groups and the games are played in February and March, before the season proper gets under way in April. I realised too late that this meant my AssMan* scheduled all our friendlies to take place after the cup games, before the league fixtures began, so we had no match prep done beforehand!
*I don't think I've mentioned this before by the way, but my AM is none other than Jari Litmanen of former Liverpool fame and he's actually pretty good, usually anyway!
Performances
Friendlies
As i mentioned earlier, our friendlies actually took place after the Finnish Cup qualifying games, but at least that meant that we were well warmed up for the warm up matches!
We played really well in all of them. All told, 7 games, 27 goals scored, 3 conceded - a perfect record to set us up for the season ahead.
KuPS 2022 - Friendly results
Finnish Cup
Fresh from last year's resounding success in the competition, this seasons aim was to reach the semi-final. We were seeded into a six-team group alongside Honka, FC Inter, JJK, RoPS and TPS where we would each play against each other once. The top four teams in the group will proceed to the Second Round.
We managed victory in 4 of our 5 games, succumbing to a 1-0 away defeat to arch-rivals Honka whoa re becoming a bogey team for us. Despite the dip, we topped the group and drew NuPS from the division below in the Second Round. We were too strong for them and ran out 6-1 winners before meeting Gnistan in the Quarter Finals. Another comfortable, albeit not convincing, 2-1 win saw us into the Semi Final where we would play AC Oulu and win again, this time 3-1. Let's face it, this wasn't the hardest of cup runs but as they say, you can only beat what's in front of you, and we're now into the final, our second in consecutive years.
KuPS 2022 - Finnish Cup results
The Finnish Cup final saw us drawn against Premier League rivals Honka again and the game would be played at their ground giving us a slight disadvantage from the off. That said, I did my homework and was quietly confident as we headed into the match, especially after our disappointing defeat in the group stage.
They took an early lead from a soft penalty, which we cancelled out before the break and 6 minutes into the second half we took the lead, a second goal for our loanee striker Jesse Tuominen. We were playing brilliantly, dominating possession and getting some good shots on target. We hit the post twice as well as the cross bar and i knew it was only a matter of time before the next goal went in.
Imagine my shock then, when it was our net that the ball ended up in! 2-2 at 67 minutes and a tense end to the game ensued, i couldn't believe we were headed to extra time when we'd been so dominant. But then, on 91 minutes, salvation in the wake of a hat-trick for our hero Jesse, and surely a Cup win for us in the process.
But wait, there's more. An unexpected twist in the tale, a delightful equaliser from our opposition in the 92nd minute to snatch glory from our fingertips and completely ruin our afternoon! Extra time and of course now the momentum was with them, i dreaded the outcome.
2022 Finnish Cup Final result
It turns out I had nothing to fear, Tuominen wasn't about to roll over, and instead chose to hit them hard on the break with a stupendous winner in the 98th minute. They couldn't get close to us after that and in the end the best team won. Here we are celebrating our success, and my first piece of silverware for the club!
Wild scenes as stewards struggle to hold back the crowds
This guarantees us another go in the Europa League this year, but more on that later on.
Premier League
The board wanted a finish "around the top" of the league which i interpreted as 3rd or higher which are the Europe qualification spots. The media had us down as 2nd favourites to title rivals HJK who have won the league for two years running now.
With some solid friendly results just behind us, we headed in to the opening fixture with some cautious optimism, despite being up against title rivals HJK at home. We were hoping for a win but a disappointing 0-0 draw was what we got. The alarm bells didn't really go off until the second game of the season against JJK which also ended 0-0. What was going on with my tactic? Why couldn't we score any goals?! Worst of all, we picked up 2 points from what should have been at least 4 in my opinion.
This was the moment Karjalainen decided to make his move and despite my best effort to assuage his concerns, i ended up losing my temper at his stubbornness and agreed to sell him. I offered him to clubs without success and so instead offered him a chance to play in the third tier of Finnish football for one of my affiliates, which I thought was more than fair. He declined the offer and so I promptly relegated him to my U20's where he was too old to play anyway. Eventually he agreed to talk to some clubs, but not until the window had closed, and so he managed to secure a move away for when the transfer window reopened in July.
In the next game, we were back on it, securing a convincing 5-1 win, before notching up 2 more consecutive victories to see us comfortably secure 3rd place. By the end of May, we'd taken a bit of a dip in form with a couple of draws and 2 losses, one of which was a home defeat to IFK Mariehamn. We were pegged back in 3rd, 10 points behind league leaders IFK Mariehamn who had been predicted a 6th placed finish at the start of the season. I resigned myself to the fact we probably wouldn't catch them, and instead turned my attention to drawing in 2nd placed HJK who were only 4 points ahead of us and also seemed to be under-performing against expectations.
In the meantime, i had my scouts look for a replacement RW and they managed to find me a brilliant Finnish lad, Robert Taylor from Odd, who I was able to loan in for the rest of the season. Just as I'd agreed the deal, the scouts notified me of another RW who was available for next to nothing, currently languishing in Ipswich Town's reserve side. His name is Nathan Holland and he's a product of West Ham's academy so i knew he'd be good. After the initial Scout report they sent me, i had him scouted until full knowledge and saw him as an absolute steal at £20k. We got the paperwork signed and he would join later in the Summer.
Meanwhile in the league, our fortunes started to take an upward turn. We earnt ourselves 16 out of 18 points in June to see us leapfrog HJK and draw within 1 point of IFK Mariehamn. Our resounding success in the league saw me also earn the June MOTM Award which was an added bonus, but perhaps the real icing on the cake was the news update that Montenegro had joined the European Union. It seemed the gods were finally smiling down on us and my midfield maestro that had missed half of the games so far, could now take his rightful place as a permanent fixture in the starting XI.
Get Out of Jail Free - Montenegro join the European Union
Into July and we couldn't maintain our winning streak, first losing to FC Lahti, and then two more bore draws against VPS and then HJK. We wobbled, and fell back down to 3rd, but still within touching distance of 1st and 2nd.
August saw us compete in just three league fixtures but the fatigue was really starting to show. Despite winning two and drawing the other, none of the performances were overly convincing and we now had 3 long-term injuries to our 1st and 2nd choice LW, plus one of our CD.
We were really struggling now with fixtures coming thick and fast and limited time to recover, let alone train. Hopefully we can hang on as we head into the final few months of the season.
KuPS 2022 - Premier League results (April to August)
Europa League
Having won the Finnish Cup, we qualified for the Europa League and the board set us the target of reaching the Second Qualifying Round.
We entered the competition at the First Qualifying Round where we drawn against Gibraltan side St Joseph's. I didn't really know what to expect, although i assumed we would win, i still fielded my best XI just to be sure.
In fact, we absolutely demolished them, going 7-0 up in the first half and finishing the first leg 10-0, an incredible scoreline I thought. All but 3 of my players scored a rating of 9 or higher in the game and we took that momentum into the return leg, still a solid 4-0 win but slightly less emphatic than the first encounter.
A Perfect 10
Next up were Polish outfit Legia Warsaw, who without a doubt would prove to be a much tougher opponent. We'd already achieved our season aim of reaching the Second Qualifying Round so this was just for fun now. The team were already starting to tire from having two games every week so i rotated the squad as much as possible. Incredibly, we took a decisive 2-1 home win in the first leg, before settling for a 1-1 draw in the return, giving us a 3-2 aggregate victory.
The Third Qualifying Round threw us Derry City from Ireland and I was much more confident heading into this one. The away leg proved to be much tougher than i expected and we were lucky to come away with a 1-1 draw. We weren't much better on our patch either, but at least secured the win we needed to take us through to the 4th Qualifying Round.
By now, the team were exhausted, but with this round being the only thing standing between us and the Europa League Group Stages, we ploughed on. The team we'd been drawn against were Real San Sebastien from the Spanish La Liga. A much more superior opposition to any we'd faced to date, i was prepared for defeat and pleased we'd made it this far anyway. To my surprise, we outplayed them in both legs, securing a 2-0 win at home, followed by a 2-1 win in the return fixture.
Incredible stuff, we were into the group stages!
KuPS 2022 - Europa League Qualifying results
The squad are shattered, it's been 2 games a week for 4 months now, with the exception of 1 week where it was just the one game! I hadn't anticipated this amount of success at the start of the season and I'm worried we really don't have the depth in the squad to keep going like this. Nonetheless, i'm optimistic for our potential in the league and am excited for the Europa League group stages. You never know, we might just pull of an upset!
To be continued...
Tune in next time to see how we fared in the Europa League Group stages, read up on the finale to the 2022 Finnish Premier League title race, plus I reveal my season highlight. Until next time friends...