Henry's transfer preview of Veikkausliiga

Friend of the blog Henry Hakamäki has written a lengthy look at the various transfers made by Veikkausliiga sides this winter. Feel free to debate, correct or moan at Henry on Twitter or in the comments below.

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With the Liigacup final on the 19th of March betweem SJK and FC Lahti, we are at a point in the pre-season where Veikkausliiga news is slow. The one thing going on currently, which we are in the midst of, is transfers and new signings. While there’s still more movement of players to be expected, now is a decent time to recap the biggest moves into and out of each Veikkausliiga club so far. I encourage all of you to let me know if you agree or disagree with my choices, which will help me when the time comes for my season predictions.

HIFK

Several players on the way out for HIFK, highlighted by Youness Rahimi (SJK) and Fredrik Lassas (FC Köln II). The biggest loss is Rahimi, a young player with a lot of potential who already has versatility and good from set pieces. The biggest in-coming name is Juho Mäkelä (VPS), a Veikkausliiga veteran and proven goalscorer.  His record over the years has been prolific and consistent, though he is getting on in years.  If he can keep the goals coming and remain fit all season, this was a tremendous move for HIFK. Also coming in are midfielder Xhevdet Gela (FC Lahti) and promising defender Juho Pirttijoki (unknown transfer from Haka).

Juho Mäkelä

HJK

It’s hard to pick just one player for HJK, since they have so many coming in and out. In terms of departures, Erfan Zeneli (Shakhtar Karagandy) with other big names leaving being Gideon Baah (New York Red Bulls), Demba Savage (BK Häcken), Rasmus Schüller (also BK Häcken) and Tapio Heikkila (SJK, then IK Start). HJK are currently swimming in quality defenders. However, attacking players is what they’re short on now and Zeneli will be missed. As for signings, the most important so far is Alfredo Morelos (Independiente Medellín). While Mikael Forssell is making his return to the team, Morelos will be counted on. The team’s best moves, however, were for defensive players to replace Baah and Heikkila. They’ve picked up Ivan Tatomirović (FK Sarajevo), Anthony Annan (Stabaek IF), and Medo.

Ivan Tatomirović

Ilves

After their impressive season last year, staying in the Veikkausliiga, Ilves have had a quiet transfer window so far. The team stayed up playing with tremendous heart and intensity, but lack players that can really turn a game on its head by themselves. The biggest loss is Antti Mäkijärvi (VfB Oldenburg). While he didn’t spend much time with Ilves, he’s a Finnish U21 international and plays left wing, a position that Ilves has lost multiple players from. They also lost Mohamad Kdouh (Vllaznia Shkodër) and Eminike Mbachu Epeleze. Coming in are Pavle Milosavljević (SJK), Antto Hilska (JJK), and Felipe Aspegren. Milosavljevic is the player that will aid in keeping Ilves in games this year. He’s a tough defender, a proven leader and has the experience of winning the Veikkausliiga title with SJK. Very good pickup for them, but I’m still hoping for some more.

Pavle Milosavljević

Inter Turku

During the season last year, Inter lost two big players in Vahid Hambo (Brighton) and Mika Ojala (VfR Aalen). They also have since lost Vincent Onovo (HJK) and Juuso Hämäläinen (RoPS), but the biggest move of all was Kaan Kairinen (FC Midtjylland), who has been the poster child since he was brought up from Inter’s youth team at the age of 16. Kairinen is a player with excellent technical abilities and reads the game very well for his age. Inter have brought in some big names to replace these players, including Pape Sow, Sebastian Mannström (SV Elversberg) and Henrik Moisander (FC Lahti). The name that I thought would make the biggest impact on the team is Faith Obilor (RoPS). Big, strong and a proven defender in the Veikkausliiga, Obilor and Sow should help the center of the defence and keep most opposition at bay.

Faith Friday Obilor

PS Kemi

Newly promoted Kemi are coming into the Veikkausliiga for the first time after winning the Ykkönen. The squad is full of young players and the team will need to find the balance between using the squad that won their league last year and incorporating new players into that cohesive group. Outgoing players include Daniel Kollar (PK-35) and Miguel Cid (BFC Daugava). Several players including come in - Aliu Djaló (Gaz Metan Medias), Muller (GD Tourizense), Joona Veteli (FF Jaro) and Ryan Gilligan (Umeå FC). Kemi needs to look for another defender though before the season starts.

Zeljko Savic (signed from SJK)

KuPS

KuPS loses a lot of defensive players this year and the replacements could make or break the season for the team. Outgoing players include Ebrima Sohna (Al-Arabi SC), Toni Markic (Zawisza) and Dani Hatakka (SK Brann). Incoming players for the year include Mika Ääritalo (Lahti), Johannes Kreidl (Hamburg) and Azubuike Egwuekwe (Warri Wolves FC). Admittedly, I do not know a whole lot about Egwuekwe. What I have seen though is that he’s a strong defender that isn’t afraid to go into challenges. He’ll need to have a good season, partnered with Babacar Diallo in the centre of the defense, because there’s not much defensive depth as it stands.

Mika Ääritalo

FC Lahti
Lahti has been relatively busy in the off season, which has lead to a place in the Liigacup final after a fairly impressive group stage. Petri Pasanen has hung up his boots after a tremendous career and Henri Toivomäki (Sarpsborg 08), Pekka Lagerblom (Jacksonville Armada), Mika Ääritalo (KuPS), and Henrik Moisander (Inter Turku) are a few of the players that have gone. Sesay will be missed particularly, as a player who had manned the left side of the defence, his departure leaves no natural left backs.  Jani Tanska, Kalle Multanen (FC Haka), Tomi Maanoja (KuPS) and Duarte Tammilehto (IFK Mariehamn) all come into the team for this season. Multanen will be the key man as he’s the only established goalscorer on the squad. Drilon Shala is a capable secondary striker, but other than those two, there’s just youth up top for Lahti.

Tomi Maanoja

IFK Mariehamn

The Suomen Cup winners have had a very quiet off-season thus far, at least in terms of players coming in. Going out, however, are three big names that were integral in the team winning the Cup. Midfielder Duarte Tammilehto (Lahti), goalkeeper Otso Virtanen (Hibernian) and midfielder Petteri Forsell (Miedz Legnica) all leave for this season. Forsell was one of the best wingers in Veikkausliiga last year in my opinion, attacking with pace, skill, and good passing to the strikers. Coming in are 16 year old Joel Mattson (Mariehamn U19) and Gabriel Petrovic (Brommapojkarna). Petrovic was a highly regarded central midfielder a couple years ago and played for Mariehamn in 2006, but I’ve not heard what he’s been up to in a several years, it appears as if he’s been languishing in the third division in Sweden for some time, so for both his and Mariehamn’s sake, they need him to resurrect his career in a way.

Gabriel Petrovic

PK-35 Vantaa
The immensely entertaining PK-35 (or is it manager Shefki Kuqi that’s entertaining? I guess a bit of both) join the Veikkausliiga this year after finishing second in the Ykkönen last year and winning the promotion play-off.  The majority of the squad remains the same, with the exceptions of defenders Sakir Redzepi and Biran Jeng, a couple of Kuqis (Albert and Daut) and youngster Daniel Rantanen (free transfer to HIFK), who I think is a promising young player who can distribute the ball well, and hopefully has many, many more years at the top level.  Coming in are Ilari Äijälä (KTP), Lucas Kaufman (Ekenäs), Daniel Kollar (PS Kemi) and Njazi Kuqi. Kollar is a young, promising goalkeeper whom I think the team will enjoy success with, but the pick for highlight coming in was between Äijälä and Kuqi.  I went with Äijälå because he is a great fullback that will help shore up the defence and provide some experience in the back. Kuqi will help bring in the goals, but he’s not going to be quite as leaned on as Äijälä by the team because he’s joined in the attack by Lucas Garcia, Masar Ömer, and the ageless Pablo Couñago, so this team has a multitude of attacking options.

Ilari Äijälä

RoPS

The Veikkausliiga runners-up have had quite the off-season, with most of last year’s backbone moving elsewhere. Going out are Eero Markkanen (AIK), Mosa Yaghoubi (Spartaks Jurmala), Faith Obilor (Inter Turku), Tomas Hradecky (Bohemians 1905) and Tomer Chencinski (Helsingborgs). Yaghoubi is the one that will be missed the most. He was one of the best young players in Veikkausliiga and really should be called up to the Huuhkajat anytime now. Replacements for these players include Juuso Hämäläinen (Inter Turku), Rob Taylor (JJK) and Ransford Osei. Osei is the player that can make or break this team this season. A solid secondary striker who a couple years ago was on the up and up, even making it to the Eredivisie with Twente, he will be counted on to take some of the scoring burden off of Aleksandr Kokko, last season’s top Veikkausliiga scorer. In all honesty, Kokko not leaving would make him the highlight player of the transfer season if I could do that.

Juuso Hämäläinen

SJK

What an off-season for the champions. While a couple of key pieces from the championship team moved on, the team is fully reloaded for the upcoming season and it’s hard to decide what move was the best for them. Heading out from Seinäjoki include Allan Souza (back to Liverpool), Wayne Brown, Akseli Pelvas (Falkenbergs), Pavle Milosavljevic (Ilves) and Cédric Gogoua (Partizan Belgrade). Coming in are players of fabulous quality. Highlighted by Finland international Alexei Eremenko Jr (Jaro), he is joined by players including defender El-Hadji Gana Kane (Ferriolense), young midfielder Matej Hradecky (TPS), Estonian international Tarmo Kink (Levadia), winger Youness Rahimi (HIFK), Finnish international defender Jarkko Hurme (Odds), Roope Riski on a permanent basis (Haugesund), and former Honka defender Abdoulaye Méïté. The team is not short of depth in most positions. I highlight Eremenko as my key, because unlike most of the players listed coming in, how he does this season could vary wildly. If motivated and he regains past form, he could be towards the top of league assist charts. If he remains in the form he has been in for a couple years…Allan would be missed.

Youness Rahimi

VPS

After a disappointing 2015 in which they only finished one point ahead of KTP, they also lose their top scorer, Juho Mäkelä (HIFK), who scored 16 of the team’s 36 goals last season. In addition, they also are losing midfielder Tony Björk, holding midfielder Denis Abdulahi and defender Teemu Honkaniemi. Coming into the team this season are Finnish international defender Veli Lampi (HJK), Nikko Boxall (Zweibrücken), Juho Lähde (SJK) and striker Andre Clennon on a permanent basis (Arnett Gardens). Lampi must lead the defence to perform solidly in order to make up for the lack of scoring threats.  There are just not many attacking options as it stands, so that must be something the club must look at.

Veli Lampi

So let me know if there’s something I missed, stupid mistakes in judgement or you disagree with my assessment of what players will be important for each team. I’m always up for differing opinions. Until next time, which I’m hoping will be my predictions for how the league table will look at the end of this Veikkausliiga season, thanks for slogging through this article with me.

Interview with Finland international Sebastian Strandvall

It's another interview on ETS, with a player who has taken a step into the (virtual) unknown. Former VPS captain Sebastian Strandvall, now of Rah Ahan in the Persian Gulf Pro League (Iran's top division), has taken time out to give some incredibe insight into life as a footballer, and as a person, in a very unique part of the world.

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How are you finding Iranian football? How did you end up in Iran?

Iranian football is all about passion and heart. That's the first thing that comes to my head. Perhaps not necessarily the same type of passion and energy as the lower British leagues. The passion here also includes doing beautiful and technical things. Otherwise comparing to Veikkausliiga, the tempo is very very high, at least at its best. You have little time on the ball and the technique and physique of the players is also good. What the Iranians lack the most is tactical knowledge. They clearly don't get the same tactical schooling as most European players get at a quite young age. This often leads to poor decision making, especially in attacking play. If you mess up a three v one counter attack in Europe, most likely you get slaughtered. But here that happens all the time and no one seems to care too much. Anyway, the Persian Gulf Pro League is a very good league compared to many European leagues. When you consider that Iran has around 80 million inhabitants and an absolutely huge interest in football, it's quite logical. 

I ended up here as a result of great agent work. Our plan was to find a good club in Central Europe, after having a good spring in Austria last year. But the small, yet badly timed ankle injury I suffered just before the end of the season, made us change our plans. We had some really good things going on but they fell apart when I wasn't 100% fit to play in the month of June. After none of these good offers in Europe succeeded, we slowly turned our focus to this side of the world. My agent is half German, half Iranian, so he had some contacts here. Then, after seeing me on videos, Rah Ahan's new owner really wanted me here and he even flew to Munich to meet with my agent. This gave me the signal that the club really wants me and also the plans for the club seemed interesting. In the end, things moved very quickly.

Seba in action in Iran

The culture in Iran is vastly different to Finland – what are the strangest customs you’ve encountered?

Of course there is the fact that you can't dress exactly the way you want, which is weird for us Europeans. But otherwise to be honest, I haven't experienced too many strange things at all. It can be very confusing though, with the Persian peoples politeness. There is a thing called "taroof" in Iran which basically means that you offer your help to anyone you meet, but with no intention of actually providing help... The person that is offered help is expected to decline several times. If you don't know that it's a matter of "taroof", you might think that you are actually going to get help or a favour from the person offering. Essentially, you get offered help but you don't actually get it. It's just a Persian cultural thing to always act politely. The most "dramatic" thing must have been when sheep have been sacrificed... A couple times at the training center and a couple times outside the hotel on the morning of a game, sheep have been sacrificed in order to keep bad spirits away...

Is it true that local women aren’t allowed to attend games? Does that make the atmosphere obviously different?

It is true yes. I think this will change in the future, as foreign women are already allowed in the stadiums. I'm sure that it will change at some point but it's very difficult to guess when it will happen. I wouldn't say the atmosphere is obviously different, but of course it would be nice if everyone who wants to could come and watch the games.

With Hans Backe now in charge of the Finnish national team, are you hoping to get back into the squad?

The Finnish national team has always been important to me, it will be my goal to be part of the squad for as long as I play at a professional level. The biggest reason I wanted to play outside Finland was that I felt I needed to play in a tougher league in order to claim a regular spot in the national team. Now when I play here, I feel like I'm better prepared to play international games, if the call-up would come. My head is already set to a quicker and more technical level of football, with little time on the ball. So yes, I'm hoping that I will get a chance with Hans Backe and I'm also confident I will get my chance at some point if I continue playing well here. There are quite a few international friendlies scheduled before the World Cup qualifiers start, so I'm sure I will be given a chance to take a spot on the team.

Photo via YLE

Your old club VPS had a slow start to 2015 but recovered well – how easy is it to follow their progress from abroad?

Yes they had a really bad season, close to catastrophic but luckily they managed to stay in the league. It doesn't really matter if you have a bad season, as long as you learn from your mistakes and try not to make them again. I follow their progress as best as I can. The Internet is very slow in Iran but it still gives me a chance to follow the progress. I read updates on different sites and also I'm still in touch with both players and staff of the teams. With the new stadium in Vaasa coming, I really hope the club will try to step it up once again and achieve a lot of success in the future.

How do you think Veikkausliiga football compares to that in Iran or Austria?

The biggest difference is in tempo. In the Austrian Erste Liga, the quality was not the best but it was a very physical style of play with quick attacks and a lot of running up and down. It was developing in the sense that I improved my ability to win duels and tackles. Also I learned how to think faster, since you really had to do that, otherwise you would get tackled for sure. Erste Liga compares to the lower English divisons, while Austrian Bundesliga also is physical, but a lot more technique and composed tactical playing. Not so much up and down all the time. I would really have liked to play in that league, since I feel it would be a really suitable league for me, and also for other typical Finnish players. In Iran the tempo is again a little higher, at least against the better teams in the league. Technical and fast guys with incredible passion and will. The Iranians have a lot to learn tactically, but for now they compromise the lack of tactical knowledge with passion and spirit. In Finland we need to develop and try to make the tempo of the games a lot higher, then we can get closer to other leagues.

Has your move abroad broadened your horizons? Would you encourage young Finns to travel away from the traditionally big leagues?

Absolutely. You need to know that the league you are about to go to is not completely shit, so to speak... But the leagues in both East and West are constantly improving. The NASL in North America for example, I would guess that's a league that is constantly getting better now since the MLS is also doing so well. Also in the East with leagues like China signing big names. Therefore I can imagine that other leagues in Asia are also going to improve. I honestly think that you don't have much to lose. A footballing career is short but if you don't like a place, I'm certain that no one will force you to stay. So if you get an opportunity, I definitely think you should try.

Photo via Veikkausliiga

What is the biggest thing you miss about Finland?

The people. My fiancé, my family and my friends. I can live without all the other lovely things that Finland offers for some time, like sauna and rye bread. I can enjoy those things when I come back. But the people I miss for sure, especially my fiancé, even though she has visited me for a total of almost two months over here.

Which player did you grow up idolising? And is there a player in the world you enjoy watching most?

Eric Cantona and David Beckham. But also of course Jari Litmanen. After 1994, Tomas Brolin from Sweden. Schweinsteiger is a favourite at the moment. But I also try to watch other players who play in my position, especially Modric, Rakitic and Thomas Müller. 

Your brother Matias is a world champion skier – were you ever keen to get into winter sports?

I actually used to compete in cross country skiing myself. It kind of goes in the family... Our parents allowed us to try every sport we wanted to. I was pretty good at skiing and I have a lot of medals from when I was young. But around the ages of 14-15, when the other boys started to train harder and get better, I fell behind and quit, because I never really liked the training. I just competed. But the technique is still there and nowadays I enjoy going for a ski when I have the time. Anyway, my number one winter sport was ice hockey. I used to play until I was 16-17 and I was pretty good at that too. At first I considered quitting football and going all in with the hockey, but I changed my mind after some coaches told me I would make the youth national team in football if I'd just quit ice hockey. My first call-up to a national team didn't happen until the age of 21, but I am still very happy with my choice.

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My thanks again to Sebastian for a superb set of answers, this already ranks very high on my list of favourites!

As always, any suggestions for future interviews or help in contacting interesting people, let me know on the usual channels...