The newly formatted Suomen Cup group phase will start on Friday and here are the fixtures for week 3.
There are 5 groups of 6 clubs in each, there was almost no competition for the few places thar were open for all clubs as all 12 Veikkausliiga clubs, all 10 Ykkönen clubs and the best 4 Kakkonen clubs were automatically invited (and forced) to take part. The winners of the group go to best-8, the remaining 3 places require a play-off between all runners-up and "best" third placed.
The 4 clubs who more or less won their place to the group phase are
HauPa
Legirus Inter
Pallo-Iirot
SJK Academy
Legirus were promoted to Kakkonen, the rest are from one level below, Kolmonen. SJK Academy may win a cabinet promotion though as there is one Kakkonen club giving up for financial reasons, YPA. They will be replaced either by Villiketut, or SJK Academy. (Edit: Villiketut got promoted, SJK Academy continue at Kolmonen.)
The fact which makes this cup format super interesting is, that for the clubs taking part in the group phase have to have some kind of an official squad ready. Now. Not in April or May but now. The policy until now has been that there are trialists all preseason, and they were also able to play in the league cup. The consequence is that some of the clubs have signed a lot of cheap kids to be able to take part, and the lineups in some cases are almost ridiculously weak. This is also a big difference for non-Veikkausliiga clubs who previously had only friendlies to play during Jan-April.
Most - if not all - of the matches will be available for betting also at Asian markets. The least likely matches not to be found are those with the Kolmonen clubs involved, and/or if there are matches at the busiest hours on the weekends. However as the matches are played indoors anyway in arenas with very limited facilities they may also be played at silly hours, very early local time, and thus they may attract huge volumes at the markets as they are almost the only competitive matches available for the betting, worldwide! Inter Turku seem to have a regular spot at 14:00 on Fridays for example.
In those cases when there is only limited access at Asian markets like Singbet, IBCbet or ISN there are also betting brokers available, my personal favourite tool is
Sportmarket PRO. More about it can be found in a separate article in this blog. In case you still have a healthy account at Bet365 you will do just fine.
The groups are:
Group A
None of these is impressing at any way right now, Kemi have signed a lot of unknown young players and I doubt that their scouting is faultless. OPS will be an exception in the rule I mentioned earlier, they do not give a damn about this cup and they will order their load of Africans later. OPS manager' s 14 yo son played in their latest friendly vs Jaro and it tells a lot about their attitude here.
Group B
SJK will win this group, but it is rather remarkable that the FA allowed their Academy to play in the same group.
Group C
HJK wins this one, but Honka are once again building a strong team even if they are at Ykkönen 2017. Return to Veikkausliiga looms ahead! Gnistan is the reserve team of HIFK this year and in some other country this would not be allowed.
Group D
Inter Turku should return to limelight after a disappointing year, and perhaps they even are a title contender? MIFK will return to mediocrity after a a Leicesterish title season.
Group E
Strong group, Ilves, KuPS and Lahti to decide the winner between themselves.
First cup odds have been released at some eurobookies already on Monday.
