VPS - FC Lahti preview

VPS (10th) – Lahti (8th)

VPS: 3-0-1-0-3-0 ------ Lahti: 0-3-1-1-1-3

H2H: 5-3-12

Last game 7.5.2009 Lahti – VPS 0-0


Edit: update! Lahti rests a lot of players, Litmanen stays home, Fofana suspended, Toivomäki and Moilanen injured. Take VPS!

VPS results have been like a roller-coaster lately, and the coach Petri Vuorinen described his team as junior team because of the inconsistency. Also the captain Tero Koskela finds room for improvement;” against Honka we tried be active and press them hard. It was not the most succesful of strategies, ” he says about the 3-0 loss at Honka last week, which came after a 3-0 victory away at Haka.

VPS have no new injuries since last week and have almost the full squad available.

FC Lahti have been travelling a lot lately. During last week they have been both in Lapland to meet RoPS and in Belgium to play Brugge in the Europe League. In their european fixture they managed a promising 3-2 loss, and in order to keep their european hopes alive for the 2nd leg at home on Thursday they will rest as many players as possible. The star Jari Litmanen 9/0 is not likely to travel to Vaasa at all and the other key striker Rafael will probably start on the bench.

It does not necessarily mean that are giving up or that will lose for sure, against RoPS they did the same thing and managed to get away with a valuable 0-1 win. The only absentee for sure is md Fofana 15/3 who is suspended.


VPS: 1 Henri Sillanpää 12/0 - 8 Jani Lyyski 16/1 – 11 Toni Hahto 12/0 – 19 Jan Berg 16/0 – 3 Lawrence Smith 12/2 – 7 Tero Koskela 14/1 – 14 Jens Nygård 16/3 - 22 Tony Björk 16/1 - 10 Antonio Inutile 15/3 – 23 Jyri Hietaharju 15/1- 20 Rikard Lindroos 11/1

Bench:9 Jussi Aalto 9/1, 25 Pekka Kainu 11/0, 12 Henrik Moisander (gk) 6/0, 4 Jussi Äijälä 11/0, 6 Petteri Forsell 9/1

Unavailable: 2 Jan Ahlvik 0/0 & 24 Benjamin Slotte 0/0, 16 Jyrki Saranpää 14/1

Coaches: Juha Reini & Petri Vuorinen



FC Lahti: 22 Juha Tuomi (gk) 6/0 – 15 Jukka Vanninen 14/0 – 21 Kaarlo Rantanen 6/0 -12 Toni Huuhka 12/1 – 6 Kalle Eerola 13/0 - 13 Jussi Länsitalo 8/2- 20 Jonne Kemppinen 14/2 – 11 Drilon Shala 16/5 – 14 Konsta Hietanen 15/0 – 19 Riku Heini 11/0 - 17 Eero Korte 16/2

Bench:16 Jussi Heikkinen 2/0, 9 Rafael 14/3, 2 Heikki Haara 13/1, 1 Viktor Szentpeteri 10/0

Unavailable: 7 Jukka Veltheim 2/0 for the rest of the season, 10 Jari Litmanen 9/0?, 8 Mohamed Fofana 15/3 suspended, 3 Henri Toivomäki 16/0, 4 Janne Moilanen 6/0

Coach : Ilkka Mäkelä

Prediction: Definitely time to act with Lahti resting so many players. They managed to get an away win at RoPS with luck and RoPS is even worse team than VPS, but definitely value in VPS-0,25 @ at 2.05 Sbobet!