Veikkausliiga top scorer - the contenders

Midway through week 29, with games spread across the week, it seems fitting to look at the top three contenders for this season's top scorer, and who stands in the way between them and glory.

Irakli Sirbiladze (Inter)

Sirbiladze has made such an impact in his first season in Turku that he has recently received his first call-ups for the Georgian national team. Fifteen league goals in twenty-eight games has been a fantastic return for the much travelled striker, and with five matches to play (at the time of writing), Inter have a fantastic chance to win the championship, and Irakli is currently leading the race to finish as top scorer.

Inter's final five games are: KuPS (h), IFK Mariehamn (h), Haka (a), TPS (h), Honka (a).

Aleksei Kangaskolkka (IFK)

Aleksei's season has been quite eventful - fourteen league goals, six yellow cards and one red in twenty-four games says it all. The improvement on last season's four goals in seventeen games has been fantastic, and despite his club's patchy form, they managed to keep on the coattails of the leaders for the majority of the season. The former Finnish U-21 forward has one fewer game to play than Sirbiladze, but has had a good personal season.

Mariehamn's final four games are: Inter (a), TPS (h), Jaro (a), MYPA (h).

Steven Morrissey - VPS

Steven's season was doing fantastically, before being struck down with myocarditis in July. That he is still in contention for top scorer shows how vital he is for VPS. Fourteen goals in twenty-four games has rocketed Morrissey into contention for a full Jamaican debut. For someone who claimed he preferred cricket as a young man (see YLE interview here), he's done fantastically well, and appears to have suffered no ill effects, including a goal and assist in the win over Jaro on Monday night.

VPS's final four games are: MYPA (a), HJK (h), KuPS (a), Haka (h).

That none of the three men have any penalties in their totals for the season is a credit, and while football is a team sport, and individual awards shouldn't be the final goal, the top scorer award would be richly deserved by either of these.

Suomen Cup final 2012 - Honka vs KuPS

Whose name will be on the cup this year?

This season's Suomen cup reaches it's climax this weekend with the match between Honka of Espoo and KuPS of Kuopio. Both teams have tasted recent defeat in finals, and have a chance to write their names in the history books. KuPS have won the Suomen Cup twice in their history, most recently in 1989; yet Honka have never won the trophy.

The clash between eighth and tenth place in the league this weekend represents their only chances of playing continental football - KuPS reaching last year's final provided them with this season's surprising run to the third qualifying round of the Europa League.

For Honka, this has been a wait of four months since their penalty shootout win over holders HJK at the end of many. They were runners-up in 2007 and 2008, losing on penalties to Tampere (07) and after extra-time to HJK (08), are they due some success? As the higher-placed team in the league, they may think that they are the slight favourite, and at the time of writing, they are with the UK based bookmakers.

 Honka after their semi-final win

But will they be able to pull it off? KuPS have been poor domestically this season, yet seem to be able to win one-off games, including Turkish side Bursaspor in Europe. Despite losing the final last year to the 'home' team, they've returned again, and despite their slight underdog status, they're no pushover. Unfortunately they spent midweek getting used to the Sonera turf losing 4-1 to HJK... Maybe they're lulling Honka into a false sense of security?

KuPS in their 1-0 win over Bursaspor - this is their chance for a repeat

This is a big game for both sides, and a chance for silverware and a €25,000 payday (plus the associated money for competing in Europe in 2013). Glory is within touching distance, and next season we could be using a photo such as this...

2011 champions HJK