Kakkonen Pohjoinen Preview

Preliminary ranking:

PS Kemi
GBK

FC YPA
TP-47

PK-37
KPV
FC Santa Claus
Warkaus JK

AC Kajaani
HauPa


Favorite:

PS Kemi

Currently PS Kemi is looking quite clearly to be the team to beat this year. They're probably not going to be even near as dominant as the last few year's winners have been, but there's quality, experience and talent in every position here. Most of their starting line-up has either experience from Ykkönen or the potential to play there (as is the case with their trio of American players). However, currently they are suffering from a lot of injuries and their relatively good training match results could be mostly attributed to their home indoor field, so don't expect smooth sailing.

Challenger:

GBK

GBK is a natural choice to be the challenger for PS Kemi this year. Inefficient Ebonque is probably the only notable departure, but Tom Melarti should be an adequate replacement at this level. Otherwise the team is intact, so as long as everybody stays fit they should have a very good chance to at least repeat last year's position.

Safe middle:

FC YPA

YPA might have finished fourth last year, but their performance overall has been getting progressively worse, so it's not a surprise that their long-tenured (10 years) coach stepped down last year. Their new coach, as it's usual to this level, is an unknown quantity, and it might as well have been the players whose levels had declined during the past few years, but YPA still has most of that team together that hasn't been far behind teams such as SJK, OPA and OPS. Should be a top-5 team easily since the nucleus of Pejic, Pakola, Heikkilä, Akmethanov, Rönkkö and Alasuutari are still there. Last year's big name signings Mahlakaarto, Pehkonen and Sarajärvi are gone, but as said last year was a big disappointment so those three leaving might just as well clear the air a bit, though the 0-6 loss against HauPa this week was just inexcusable.

TP-47

The superior version of HauPa will very likely challenge for a top-5 position this year too. While there were a couple of tough departures, such as Barsk (though he's still on the contract list), Himanka and Uusitalo, of which the first two were responsible for most of the scoring, they have signed two very good players for this level in Väänänen and Kivilä who came from OPS. As said, most of their team is the same as last year so expect boring and low-scoring games with no fear of relegation. edit: the information from a local newspaper says that they've lost many more players, so I'd drop them around Santa Claus.

Lower middle:

PK-37

PK-37 continued their tradition of having bald head coaches by picking up former AC Oulu player Mika Lähderinne to act as their new player-coach. Nearly everyone (experienced Laukkanen retired, or something) is back from last year's team, and in fact Simo Rönkkö changing his name to Simo Sirviö is probably the most notable player news. The bad news is that KuPS will be having their own reserve team, and without help from KuPS PK-37 would have likely been very near to get relegated last year. But still, In theory PK-37 could finish surpisingly high as Lähderinne & Rönkkö are easily Ykkönen material and if the rest of the team can raise their level a bit they could have a relatively fair chance to end up in the top-5.

KPV

Just a couple of years removed from a promotion playoff to Veikkausliiga, KPV now find themselves back in Kakkonen. Unlike PS Kemi, KPV hasn't signed anyone of note so an instant return to Ykkönen is out of the question. Their player-coach Henri Myntti has returned from an injury and he should be an excellent player at Kakkonen, experienced defender Kalliokoski is also a good player for this level but otherwise there isn't a lot of quality in their squad, though using only local players is something that should be applauded. Training matches have not gone particularly well, though beating GBK in aggregate to win a local cup was quite impressive. At the moment it looks like they are a step above the poorest teams, but relegation is certainly not out of the question if things start to fall apart as it looks like there won't be any foreign help coming due to their financial situation.

FC Santa Claus

Constant bankruptcy rumors have still continued to hover around Santa Claus. Many of the key players have left but strangely enough they have a couple of very good signings in Hänninen (if he's fit to play) and former RoPS man Ville Syväjärvi. Last year's coach Haapaniemi is back in Oulu with his unsuitable tactics, so that could be a good thing. Training matches have went surprisingly well but Santa is probably going to have to fight against relegation this year, especially considering how close they were of it last year with a much better squad. A reserve deal with RoPS might help a bit, but since RoPS is operating with a thin squad that's a big if.

Warkaus JK

Last year everything went wrong for Warkaus after the midsummer as they only managed to squeeze a couple of wins against the bottom sides and then won unmotivated GBK on the last day of the season to ensure their survival. Being the "south" team this year (means also huge amounts of travel), Warkaus is a bit of a unknown, but purely looking at the transfers they've lost their top-scorer Klimov and another regular in Kuronen, but have hoovered a lot of local players from JJK's junior team and last year's Kakkonen teams FC Vaajakoski and ViPa. They also have an agreement with JJK from where they got Eero Markkanen who was very impressive last year in ViPa (9 goals). RoPS reject Marin Gjoca could also be a good player at this level. Just by glancing last year's line-ups one can see that this year's team is going to look completely different, but unless the new players are really good I don't think Warkaus is going to have any chance in promotion battle like Kymppipaikka has predicted, fight against relegation is looking like a much more realistic outcome as there probably won't be any punching bags this year unless AC Kajaani or HauPa flop badly.

Relegation candidates:

AC Kajaani

As you would expect from a team with such a name, AC Kajaani's success will mostly depend on how their foreigners (probably 7 out of 11 in the starting line-up) play. Rest of the players are fringe youth players, unless Kajaani has suddenly become a hotbed for talent, and equally poor older players, who are probably Kolmonen quality too as some of them are familiar from KajHa's Kakkonen years. For what I've gathered AC Kajaani actually has some financial stability behind them and they already have visions of playing in Ykkönen in a couple of years, so their visit might be a bit longer than what it has usually been with Kajaani teams. However, at the moment I'd rate them low middle table at best until there's some indication on how good their foreigners actually are on this level.

HauPa

Magical head coach Paananen has left and defensive leader Räisänen is now playing in OPS. Overall approximately half of their starting line-up is gone and the replacements are mostly their own youth players and Oulu-based talents, who were not good enough to get a contract with upper-level teams. Goalscoring is going to be a huge pain for them again and with Keskinen no longer in goal (unless he's signed) and most of the defense gone it's looking pretty bad there too. At the moment HauPa is the relegation candidate number one unless they can overachieve like they did last year. That would probably involve having Rikkinen, Lukkari, Hanhela and other young talents to fully blossom, and rookie trainer Isokangas maturing into a good coach.


Preliminary total ideas:

Leaning to over:
AC Kajaani (15-3, 6.05 in Kolmonen), it's either a Korsholm-like performance or the foreigners are actually good, which means goals as most of them are either in midfield or forward positions. In any case, unless their Ukrainian goalkeeper is really good, their defense looks very suspect.
Warkaus JK (2011: o/u 2.5 19-7, goal average 3.50), particularly after their coaching change in the start of September Warkaus had some wild-scoring matches. However, lot of turnaround in the team so I'm not totally confident that they'll continue with that way.
FC Santa Claus (18-8, 3.50), defense will be almost completely new, but both top scorers return. New coach is always a questionmark, so safest way would be to wait for a few rounds.

Middle:
FC YPA (16-10, 2.92), last season was surprisingly boring for the traditionally high-scoring side, but I'd expect them to return to their old ways.
PS Kemi (14-10, 2.83 in Ykkönen), defense should be solid with two experienced goalkeepers and a defense line of Juvonen, Hyvärinen and the likes. Spivack, Stevens, Eissele, Torvikoski, Siekkinen and co are good for this level, but I'm doubtful that they will be able to be that explosive to consider PS Kemi as a clear over team.
GBK (15-11, 3.31), almost nothing has changed from last year so middle of pack looks likely in terms of goals.

Slightly under:
PK-37 (16-10, 3.31), the addition of Lähderinne should help their defense and as there will not be players like Kaivonurmi coming from KuPS it's looking like PK-37 might be a bit lower scoring this year.
KPV (12-12, 3.21 in Ykkönen), Myntti will probably help in the striking department but other than that there doesn't seem to be any dangerous attacking threats in the team. Defensively they look pretty average too.

Likely under:
TP-47 (11-15, 2.92), almost the same team as last year, so another low-scoring year is an easy prediction to make.
HauPa (12-14, 2.62), apart from Makowski there's no one to score goals, defense will likely be poorer than last year so away games especially could get ugly. However, unless a complete drop-off occurs I'd expect them to be a quite under-like.

Training matches