20.11.2010

Ricketts transfer from MyPa to Timisoara!

Or maybe it should read Ricketts joins the Police?

I talked this through a week ago or so, good luck to everyone involved!

From Timisoara website;
Tosaint Ricketts a semnat cu Poli!
2010-11-20 16:30:15
Astăzi, 20 noiembrie, atacantul canadian Tosaint Ricketts a semnat cu Politehnica Timişoara. Ricketts s-a născut la 6 august 1987 la Edmonton (Canada), iar ultima dată a evoluat la echipa finlandeză MyPA-47, sub culorile căreia, într-un an, a marcat nouă goluri în 38 de meciuri. A jucat în naţionala de tineret, respectiv cea olimpică a Canadei. "Sunt bucuros că am semnat cu Poli, pentru mine este un pas înainte în carieră. Abia aştept să evoluez la noua mea formaţie, abia aştept să reîntâlnesc suporterii timişoreni, care m-au impresionat când am jucat în cupele europene, sub tricoul celor de la MyPA-47".  


Google translates this again in an excellent manner, here you are guys 

" Tosaint Ricketts has signed with the Police!2010-11-20 16:30:15Today, 20 November, the Canadian striker Tosaint Ricketts has signed with Politehnica Timisoara. Ricketts was born on 6 August 1987 in Edmonton (Canada), and last performed for the Finnish team MyPa-47, in colors that, in a year, has scored nine goals in 38 matches. He played in the national youth, that the Canadian Olympic. "I'm glad I signed with the Police, to me is a step forward in their careers. I can not wait to move to my new band, can not wait to reunite fans of Timisoara, which impressed me when I played in European Cups under the shirt of the to MyPa-47."




19.11.2010

Kakkonen 2011 Groups A, B & C

One, and only one of these 42 teams will win the promotion!


A

Atlantis FC, Helsinki
FC Futura, Porvoo
FC Kiffen, Helsinki
FC Kuusankoski
FC Kuusysi, Lahti
GrIFK, Kauniainen
IF Gnistan, Helsinki
Kotkan Työväen Palloilijat - KTP
Käpylän Pallo, Helsinki - KäPa
Laajasalon Palloseura, Helsinki - LPS
Malmin Palloseura, Helsinki - MPS
Mikkelin Palloilijat - MP
Pallohonka, Espoo
Klubi 04, Helsinki


Most clubs from the Helsinki area, apart from MP, KTP and Kuusysi (and Futura). Kuusankoski will be replaced probably by Sudet from Kouvola.


 B :

Bollklubben -46, Raasepori- BK46
FC Jazz, Pori
Idrottsföreningen Kraft, Närpiö
IF Kamraterna, Åbo - ÅIFK
Järvenpään Palloseura - JäPS
Ilves, Tampere
Lohjan Pallo - LoPa
Musan Salama, Pori - MuSa
Pallo-Iirot, Rauma
Salon Palloilijat - SalPa
Tampereen Palloveikot - TPV
Tampereen-Viipurin Ilves-Kissat, Tampere
Tikkurilan Palloseura, Vantaa  - TiPS
Turun Toverit - TuTo

Western group, TiPS and JäPS would probably have preferred group A.


 C :

FC Santa Claus, Rovaniemi
FC Vaajakoski
Gamlakarleby Bollklubb, Kokkola - GBK
Haukiputaan Pallo - HauPa
Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Vaasa - VIFK
Jakobstads Bollklubb - JBK
Jalkapalloseura F.C. YPA, Ylivieska
Pallo-Kerho 37, Iisalmi PK-37
Soccer Club Riverball, Joensuu
Seinäjoen Jalkapallokerho - SJK
Tornion Pallo-47 - TP47
Vaasan Kiisto
Vihtavuoren Pamaus -
Warkauden Jalkapalloklubi - WJK

Long distance northern group but it can not really be helped.

17.11.2010

Finland vs. San Marino

Edit: local tv commentators can not gather themselves!

Edit: FT 8-0. Justified I guess, but these kind of matches leave me a bit  cold. Jari Litmanen on the other hand never does, and as he came in at HT it was only 1-0. One unofficial match report in english here.

Edit: odds for Finland have been rising big time, and I like it! Finland -3.75 @ 1.98 thank you.


EDIT: starting lineup of Finland

1 Otto Fredrikson
2 Petri Pasanen
3 Niklas Moisander
5 Veli Lampi
6 Mika Väyrynen
7 Roman Eremenko
9 Mikael Forssell
15 Daniel Sjölund
20 Alexei Eremenko Jr
21 Kasper Hämäläinen
23 Markus Heikkinen


Tonight´s international top clash vs. San Marino (preview by San Marino reporter in Italian ) will be the last match of the season 2010 around here for me. Fortunately the pre-season for 2011 starts in December!

There is actually theoretical value in San Marino +3.75 @ 2.12 tonight, but bloody hell I am not taking it! A few words regarding the atmosphere in the Finnish squad tonight;

  • the failed manager Stuart Baxter has been fired a few weeks ago. He is still in a consulting/insulting role in the team, but he is pretty much history by now.
  • Olli Huttunen is the caretake-manager. He is, looks like and acts like an assistant manager and is on top of his career for today.
  • Again, this might be another chance for a farewell game for Jari Litmanen, but he is good in keeping his thoughts to his own.
  • There are no big changes in the squad, Huttunen decided not to include a few ( ok, only Perparim Hetemaj from Brescia) controversial players into the team who were partly to blame for sacking Baxter.
  • The expectactions among the big audience are not too high, I guess San Marino is not the most of interesting of all teams. The ticket prices also were on a ridiculous level and the Olympic stadion will be some only some 20-25 % full of the capacity.
You can all see yourselves from the stats how the visitors have done, and admittedly since scoring a fast goal vs. England exactly 17 years ago they have not been that much on fire in front of the goal.

Hungary and Sweden demolished San Marino rather thoroughly recently and Finland do have good chances to do the same. There are players capable of - and hungry of - scoring a lot of goals. However as I do again have the luxury of watching this live from the home sofa and making up my mind later that is what I will do. I hope an opportunity rises for a nice bet, but if Finland has all the possession and the speed from the start it is rather unlikely as the pre-match odds for the favourite are very poor value.

16.11.2010

Finland U21 vs Luxemburg away 17.11.2010

Edit: FT 1-0 for Lux.


Starting line was about +0,75 for the hosts.



Gk
Eemeli Reponen, FC Inter
Tomas Karike, HJK

Def
Henri Toivomäki, -
Tuomas Rannankari, FC Twente
Thomas Götzl, SpVgg Weiden
Tero Mäntylä, FC Inter
Mikko Sumusalo, HJK
Timi Lahti, FC Haka
 Atte Hoivala, KuPS

Mf & att
Johannes Westö, HJK
Joni Kauko, FC Inter
Juho Lähde, TPS
Juuso Simpanen, FC Honka
Petteri Pennanen, FC Twente
Rasmus Schüller, FC Honka
Riku Heini, FC Lahti
Alexander Ring, HJK
Roope Riski, TPS
Teemu Pukki, HJK
Jaakko Lepola, FC Honka


Starting lineup:
                  
                      Reponen
Toivomäki-Götzl-Mäntylä-Sumusalo
Simpanen-Pennanen-Schüller-Lepola
                  Pukki-Ring

15.11.2010

A lot of transfers and rumours going on

Some of them expected and make sense, some of them do not. It is not yet really a time to draw any conclusions, but for example this is one of funniest and shows on how thin basis some of the ideas come from;

www.prosport.ro says:"
Aflaţi în căutarea unui atacant de viteză, timişorenii s-au orientat spre Tosaint Ricketts (23 de ani), jucător la MyPa (Finlanda). Oficialii alb-violeţilor vor purta discuţii cu acesta chiar săptămâna viitoare.
Apropierea iernii îi determină pe bănăţeni să se gândească deja la o nouă campanie de transferuri. "Cât de curând, probabil chiar săptămâna viitoare, vom sta faţă în faţă cu cel cu care vom încerca să semnăm un contract. Ne trebuie un pic de viteză în plus", a spus Marian Iancu despre jucătorul vizat.
Chiar dacă nu a dezvăluit la cine se referă, indiciile duc la Tosaint Ricketts de la MyPa, care a măturat cu defensiva bănăţenilor în vară. Ricketts a fost autorul unei "duble" în prima repriză a partidei de pe "Dan Păltinişanu", după ce marcase şi în tur. Mai mult, contractul internaţionalului olimpic canadian cu MyPa expiră la sfârşitul acestui an, ceea ce-l face un jucător mai ieftin."

Which loosely translated means that Timisoara might be interested in MyPa striker Tosaint Ricketts who did very well against them in the Europe League qualifications.



It is all true that he probably played the best matches of his life and succeeded in scoring, but his basic level as a footballer does not qualify him even into the bench of any professional team. He is a runner, not a footballer.

If you make a deal Tosaint then good luck, hopefully they pay good money to MyPa too but it would be completely wasted.

Google translator came up with this Finnish version and it speaks volumes of much work there still is to do at Google translation department:

" Etsitkö eteenpäin nopeudella, Timişoara oli suuntautunut Tosaint Ricketts (23), pelaaja MyPa (Suomi). Violet ja valkoinen virkamiehet keskustelee hänen kanssaan, vaikka ensi viikolla.Banat lähellä talvi aiheuttaa jo miettiä uuden kampanjan siirtoja. "Kuinka pian, todennäköisesti ensi viikolla, me istumme kasvotusten, joka yritämme allekirjoittaa sopimuksen. Tarvitsemme hieman lisää vauhtia", sanoi Marian Iancu noin kyseisen pelaajan.Vaikka ei paljasteta kenellekään, joka viittaa vihjeitä johtava MyPa Tosaint Ricketts, joka pyyhkäisi puolustava Banat kesällä. Ricketts oli kirjoittanut "kaksinkertaistuu" ensimmäisellä puoliskolla pelin Dan Păltinişanu "jälkeen merkki ja pyöreä. Lisäksi Kanadan olympialaisten MyPa kansainvälinen sopimus päättyy tämän vuoden lopussa, mikä tekee siitä halvemman näköinen. "

12.11.2010

Hello darkness my old friend

Watching out of the window there is not much to see - darkness has taken over. I happened to see on telly a program where they talked about dark songs and one of them mentioned was a favourite from the 70´s "Lumi teki enkelin eteiseen" . What they did on TV was that they mentioned that it had became second in the poll of the darkest Finnish songs. No mention of the number one though, and had to google a bit to my big annoyment. The poll had been organized by a a national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on 2007, and this old song came out as winner ;



About povery and misery.. pretty much everything you can think and then finally comes the happiness in the form of death.

Brilliant!

Top ten list here:

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11.11.2010

Learning to be lucky

The following article from HBR has very little to do football, but is a good read and if I copy it there is a fat chance I find it again later ;)

Here are the three most important things lucky people tend to do:

1. Entrepreneurially lucky people are driven by a deep intellectual curiosity. 
2. Lucky people feel lucky and are optimistic.
3. Lucky people are vulnerable and humble. 
 
http://blogs.hbr.org/tjan/2010/10/make-luck-work-in-your-favor.html

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