Kakkonen
My favourite level of leagues, very few teams constantly perform on the same level or even on both halves of the same match and basically anything can happen. It works as a reserve league for some big clubs, and when there are key men from the top teams they can make a huge difference.
This season there are 3 regional groups of 14 teams each, but the Finnish FA have decided to change the whole system of football leagues in two years time, and instead of all group winners getting a promotion like they used to do they will have to compete against each other and only 1 team wins a promotion.
A bit harsh isn´t it? Especially for the other teams than Ilves who have taken this project of getting promoted very seriously.
Before this season the last 3 of each group were relegated, but there is a plan to change that too, and the two worst 11th placed teams will get relegated too. I guess they just decide it by points earned who the worst 2 are, and it is not too fair either as probably teams from the most even and classy groups will be there.
I copied the regional distribution map at the blog
Kakkonen A is Southeast, Kakkonen B Southwest and Kakkonen C the North.
Distances
There are some long distances for all the C group teams as you can see in the map, In the A group Riverball, WJK and PePo have to cover quite a many km at their away matches and in the group B there are no huge distances, it takes some 3 hours to drive to Pori to face Jazz and MuSa from the Helsinki metropolitan area. And vice versa of course.
Money
There are a few clubs that pay something to the players and Ilves is rather professionally run with high ambitions, but the players are mostly 100 % amateurs and work or study during the day. Or both.
Support
There are no big clubs at Kakkonen, but most of them are the biggest clubs in their rather small cities, or they are from a certain part of a city if they are from Helsinki. The biggest crowds in ”big” Kakkonen matches can be up to a 1000 or so on a good day, but normally we are talking about gates of 100 – 200 football lovers. Friends, mothers and old-timers, at same matches it feels like there are only professional bettors, live reporters and analysts.
Ambitions
Kakkonen can be a good level for a year or two for a young player with talent if he is a regular and given a lot of responsibility, but if you get stuck there there is very little hope that you ever get to play on a higher level. For most of the players it is a good hobby, and the travel is easier than in Ykkönen.
Most teams are not usually looking for a promotion too seriously either, and it has been a common sight at the end of the season that the good teams on the top spot start rotating a lot and losing points. Simply they just do not want to get promoted as it would cost much more money for the club.
Nobody wants to get relegated however, and that battle is the one of interest in most groups, though there are traditionally some teams who get relegated and promoted on a yearly basis, they are not good enough for Kakkonen, but as their regional 3rd group is very poor in quality they get easily promoted again the next year. To name a few, Kultsu, Rakuunat, PePo, Lapuan Virkiä, Korsholm..
Betting
That is a problem even for the locals to find information as this is not very high on the priority in the media. The matches are on offer however in Asia, and you can see from the big market movements that in many cases the bookies do not have any idea how to set the odds. If they start dropping hugely it usually has nothing to do with fixing matches, it just shows that there has been some pressure from those in the know.
The nature of the matches
There are a lot of goals and very few draws as a consequence. Usually the best teams have the lowest goal averages like FC Espoo last year who were out there to win the games, not to score a lot. Roughly the estimate for a draw is about 20 %.
The reserve team status
Pallohonka consists almost fully of 16-18 best players of the country with NT status in the youth teams. They can however use FC Honka players from the Veikkausliiga, and they can make a very big difference. Without them Pallohonka are a bit weak physically and about a midtable team, but with some enforcements they could easily get promoted if they so wished.
Inter use Sinimustat as a reserve team but they have not as big roster as Honka and in general not so good players available for Sinimustat. TPS´s reserve is Åbo IFK, there is a big change as well if they have TPS players or not.
Jaro and JBK are very close, but Jaro do not have too many players to borrow.
KuPS help out PK-37 which is hugely important for PK, and WJK also have many players with KuPS background.
MyPa use FC Kuusankoski as a reserve, and help is also seriously needed in that direction.
JJK will try to help Blackbird at Kakkonen, but it is not going to be easy.
Ilves used to have co-operation with TamU, but they felt exploited as TamU needed a lot of Ilves youngsters,and that agreement has come to an end.
From the Ykkönen clubs
Viikingit have co-operation with PK-KU, and PoPa help MuSa sometimes, but the difference in quality is not that big.
What else? Who is going to win a game?
As you can imagine there are several factors here which make it rather useless to use the table as a tool to predict games in this league.
A lot of games have derby flavour which always even up things, mid week long away matches are difficult, the key players from top league help a lot, there is another thing which effects some teams a lot, the army service which every one is obliged to do.. and there is no news, no media.
I personally see a lot Kakkonen matches, I know the teams in my area well. I know other people who follow it for professional and betting reasons, and we do exchange ideas. Here comes the advantage and competitive edge, by sitting by the pitch in rain watching poor football and discussing poor football with others!
There are no certain winners here either. There will be wins and losses by big margins. There will be everything, and there is a lot of value to be taken.
Quick ranks for possible top and bottom teams in each group;
A Gnistan, City Stars ---------------- Futura, Atlantis, Kuusankoski, Vantaa, PePo
B Ilves --------------------------------- Sinimustat, MuSa, BK-46
C SJK, VIFK, Kiisto -----------------JBK, Blackbird, KajHa, Korsholm
I am sure we end up discussing these a lot more during the summer! SoVo price has dropped some 10 % now to -0,25 @ 1.88 and at least most of the value has been eaten up, but there will be a lot more betting opportunities during the season.
Enjoy your day,
