MyPa - Haka preview Aug 30th 2010

Edit: MyPa odds rising a lot, 1,94 is already a good value bet. Probably the market are reacting to the new Haka players Lahti and Lehtinen, but as mentioned below they are not turning Haka into a winning team. MyPa line-up is the permanent they have had, the new guy is on the bench. Hopefully this rises even more.


MyPa – Haka

In about two months time both time have won only once in the league, and in both cases the unlucky loser has been TamU. In that light any big handicaps make no sense, and scoring is the key problem actually for both teams. Hakaｴs other worries have been widely discussed here, but as they are finacially on their feet again – at least temporarily – and there has been player traffic also into Hakaｴs direction they still have the survival in the league in their own hands.

MyPa played rather well in the Europa League ql, but conceding 3 goals on the second half in the away and decisive leg at Timisoara left them with only the league survival battle to fight for. They had been ranked as a black horse and a possible title contender before the season in some local expertｴs mind, but I have never seen any indication of that and lower midtable , even the relegation battle is where they belong with their thin material who lack especially reliable strikers. Votonow and Ricketts have scored a few and they had a good run, but they would never make my team.

Haka got a youngster Timi Lahti who has spent several years in Italy with Padova organization and their own ex-striker Toni Lehtinen also returns from his spell in Europe. They are well needed, but Haka have problems all over the pitch and the midfield is probably the worst part, what do you do with the striker who never gets a ball from his midfielders?

I mentioned before that Haka will grab points every now and then when given a chance against another team who can not keep up the pace and pressure throughout the game, I am not sure if this is one of the cases but neither of the teams is appealing at current odds.

Haka miss defender Markus Joenmäki and long-term injured Kalle Parviainen, striker Jukka Santala – who btw fired another blank last night in the shock loss away at MP - transferred to RoPS.

MyPa might introduce new signing Stefan De Las, or not, but his usefulness in any case is doubtful. A few fringe players (Alonen, JJK, Kurittu,MP) are on loan elsewhere.

	MyPa	Haka
-1	2,36	1,74
-0,75	2,03	1,97
-0,5	1,79	2,27

MyPa - Haka preview

A goalless fest at dull Anjalankoski

MyPa:1-1-0-0-3-0
Haka:3-3-3-0-3-1

H2H: 8-3-7. League Cup 14.02.2009 Haka – MyPa 2-3

MYPA has been missing important playmaker Ady who returns to the squad after recovering from injury. The home side has been having huge goal creating problems without him, and the strikers in the team are not that good that they could a lot chances themselves.

Along the years this has been an even fixture, and both teams have traditionally been sponsored by big paper factories who pay the bills and build the stadions, this has been changing only lately due to world-wide economic crisis. Haka goalkeeper Janne Korhonen played 11 seasons at MyPa, only to get transferred for this season to get some new ideas and challenges, and knows the home perfectly, as does Haka coach Olli Huttunen, ” MyPa has always been one of the toughest places to go to, we have been succesful here along the years, but the points have never been easy to get. Somehow the style of play of MyPa seems to suit us,” he says.

MyPa had high hopes and finding themselves at top spots after a good pre-season and nice results against HJK (1-0) and Honka (0-0), but the relegation play-off spot is becoming a real threat unless MyPa gets some wins. Thus all the pressure is on the home side, leaders Haka have reached a lot of points - the experts seem to think there are already too many – and they can take a a more relaxed approach to the game.

Sampsa Timoska 5/0 is the only absentee for MyPa, and Haka have no injury worries while only Parviainen 0/0 and Minkenen 4/0 are unavailable.

MYPA: 1 Antti Kuismala 11/0 – 4 Antti Uimaniemi 11/0 – 11 Ilari Äijälä 9/3 – 18 Tuomas Aho 11/0 – 16 Toni Huttunen 11/1 - 6 Tuomo Könönen 10/0 - 8 Ady 9/2 – 2 Miikka Multaharju 11/0 - 7 Ben Webster 1/0 – 9 Saku Puhakainen 11/0 – 19 Maxim Votinov 9/2

Bench: 5 Jarno Tuunainen 0/0, 13 Toni Lindberg 8/0, 15 Ville Oksanen 10/0, 12 Mika Johansson (gk) 0/0, 14 Tosaint Ricketts 7/3, 20 Felipe Benevedes 1/0, 23 Niko Nakari 4/0,, 24 Nebi Mustafi 6/0
Unavailable: 3 Sampsa Timoska 5/0
Coach : Janne Lindberg



Haka: 1 Janne Korhonen 12/0 – 2 Diego Corpache 12/1 – 18 Jari Nikkilä 11/0 - 4 Markus Joenmäki 3/0 - 22 Jarno Mattila 12/0 - 6 Sebastian Strandvall 12/2 - 7 Mikko Innanen 12/2 – 11 Antti Hynynen 11/2 - 10 Mika Mäkitalo 11/2 - 8 Jani Kauppila 12/0 - 9 Niko Ikävalko 10/2

Bench:12 Saku Pesonen (gk) 0/0, 15 Nicolas Kivistö 6/0, 16 Jani Bäckman 7/1, 20 Sami Ristilä 8/1, 3 Petri Viljanen 8/0, 21 Pietari Holopainen 10/5, 28 Hans Denissen 2/0

Unavailable: 5 Kalle Parviainen 0/0, 14 Valeri Minkenen 4/0

Coach : Olli Huttunen

Prediction: Haka will find it difficult to score. Another 0-0 in the round! The only way to score is to get Ady back into full match-fitness. More details tomorrow for proper betting analysis