IFK Mariehamn - TPS Turku league cup 17th Feb 2010

Edit: This is a good example what can happen to the odds in Finnish football. First time I saw the prices IFK was a favourite, now the odds have turned around and TPS + 0,25 @ 2 has transformed into TPS - 0,25.

Edit2: Obviously my pencil strikes were not big enough, IFK 0  was for a minute @ 2.35, which is quite an astonishing price for the team that is supposed to be the favourite in the match! The market moves are crazy, and the campaign has not even started yet! I still keep my fingers out of this, but with early TPS bet there would had been excellent chances for some nice free profit. Two minutes for kick-off and there still are no line-ups available.

FT 1-0. Match report by IFK here.
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According to my initial numbers IFK is quite a good value at 0 @ 2.05 compared to my estimation of 1.75, but like I said in the first place, I do not like this fixture at all, too many questionmarks to my liking. Interesting to see if the odds drop even further!

This is not one of my favourite fixtures. Mariehamn have big home advantage, but they tend to dismiss this competition and lack a decent striker. TPS have 2 new test players - well Toni Kolehmainen got a contract with them according to the latest Team News and the othere one is an unknown Dane - which will not help them in this match, but personally I see that a in-form striker TPS Babatunde Wusu can decide these kind of matches by himself.

Asian limits with a big pencil.

IFK -0,25

:

TPS 0,25

48.6% - 51.4% (2.06 - 1.94)

IFK 0

:

TPS 0

57.1% - 42.9% (1.75 - 2.33)

(Edit: TPS - 0,25 has dropped to 1.80 now. Some people obviously know a lot more about this than I do!)

There was TPS - 0,25 @ 2.03, at the moment the odds are pretty much correct. The team news are a bit obscure as always when we talk about Finnish Veikkausliiga news feed, but the IFK Mariehamn players bolded are out, and there might be some other players also missing because of flu.
"IFK:n joukkue on kärsinyt viime päivinä vilustumisoireista ja lopullinen pelaaryhmä keskiviikon otteluun lyödään lukkoon vasta ottelupäivänä. Varmuudella sivussa ovat loukkaantuneet Sasha Anttilainen, Wilhelm Ingves ja Simon Enqvist, Turkissa testileirillä oleva Dmytro Pronevych sekä Kosovon maajoukkueen matkassa oleva Arsim Gashi."

However, these 5 players missing mean almost nothing. Anttilainen, Ingves and Gashi played a lot of minutes last season, but failed to make an impact. 

Igor Utkovic who was tested against FC Lahti is unlikely to get a contract, but former KuPS player Echiabhi Okodugha will have his chance to convince IFK coach Pekka Lyyski on Wednesday.

IFK were supposed to meet Brommapojkarna next week, but due to harsh winter conditions and BP:s unwillingness to play indoors at Eckeröhallen the match is cancelled and perhaps TPS game will be taken a bit more seriously.

TPS have resurrected in the late months. The manager left, two of their best players left along with some others and they were also about to get forced out of their stadium, but with the youngsters improving and some interesting signings like NT legend Jonatan Johansson there seems to be a peace and understanding again in the TPS camp and they can look confidently into the season starting in April. Johansson is not in the squad for some time though as he prefers to tune himself into match fitness on his own back home in Scotland.

All Veikkausliiga transfers so far here!  

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