|
Football enthusiast Tunji Toriola thinks he may have finally found a team to support in AC Oulu. It is the desire of any true football fan to watch top quality football matches anywhere in the world. The feeling you get supporting your team in a stadium, live, is just incredible. The fans singing; chanting the names of their favorite players, lightheartedly poking fun at the opposition is enchanting.
 Listening to Liverpool FC fans singing “You will never walk alone” is probably a classic for many people even if they don’t support Liverpool. Even when your team is not at its best form, the overall atmosphere in the stadium can be fulfilling. I remember watching Arsenal play Birmingham at Highbury stadium in 2004 and the feeling was unbelievable despite having to cough up close to 40 pounds for a ticket!
Getting to Finland, one of the first things that hit me was that football plays second fiddle to other sports such as ice hockey and Finnish baseball in the national psyche despite boasting very good footballers such as Jari Litmanen, Sami Hypia, Mikael Forsell and Jussi Jaskalainen, with Jussi Jaskalainen definitely one of the best goalkeepers in the English premier league in the last decade. Finding a Team to Support This time last year, I was in Kuopio and I chose to support KuPS football club, the only problem being that they were playing in division one and not the premier division. The games were not fantastic but I still went to watch and support them. At the end of the season, to my joy, KuPS were champions of division one and got promoted to the premier league. I was happy that I could watch some better football the following season and maybe KuPS would perform very well, win the premier league and I may get the opportunity to watch Champions league football live in Kuopio!. Call me a dreamer but it’s not a crime to dream! On the other hand, when AC Oulu were last in the premier league, they got relegated and took KuPS’s place in division one but that did not bother me because Oulu was so far away from me then, it didn’t matter to me one bit which division AC Oulu will play. Fast forward to today, I now live in Oulu, I need a new team to support and watch their matches live and I realized it can only be AC Oulu!, well, I just have to live with division one football again, at least for one more year, support AC Oulu and hope my support will translate into another promotion to premier league, this time for AC Oulu, you never know, my support may have a Midas touch!. AC Oulu Take On Käpa I went to watch AC Oulu take on Käpa on 29th May. I got to the stadium after the match had started and while I was trying to buy the ticket in my rudimentary and faltering Finnish, a gentleman behind me came to my rescue in English and actually gave me a free ticket, boy, did I thank him! There were not many people in the stadium but the number was still sizeable, and by then AC Oulu was leading by 1 goal, scored by Jarno Tenkula. AC Oulu’s playing pattern was to build up from the midfield anchored by Friday Iyam and then spray the ball to the wings. On the few times the wingers actually got the ball, they crossed into the 18 yard box to start a melee but no serious threats emerged from these incursions. They had better possession of the game without really dominating and most of their forays upfront were wasted by poor finishing in front of goal. On at least three occasions, the ball was begging to be played into an almost empty net but how the attackers managed to do otherwise still baffles me. Even though, Käpa did not attack the goal as much as AC Oulu, the few times they did, they actually looked more threatening in front of goal. The determination of these two teams could not however be questioned judging by the intensity, albeit sometimes clumsiness, of their tackles and at a point in time, I was hoping nobody would go home with a broken leg. Supporting . . . in silenceThe main action going on in the stands was little children running up and down. I guess for the children, it was more of an opportunity to be having some outdoor activities. I expected the spectators to get behind the team, lift them up and sing to support them but there were only occasional claps from some spectators and the majority looked rather bored with proceedings on the field. A group of about ten young men wearing all blue, however, did try to break the norm by clapping and singing but these never lasted for more than 2 minutes at a stretch. I looked for passion from the supporters but it was difficult to see, maybe it was buried deep down and was not allowed to come to the fore or maybe the passion was expressed in the quietness or I justd didn’t look deep enough. At the 89th minute when many people were leaving the stadium with assurance of maximum points in the bag, Käpa did the unthinkable and equalized. Final scores, AC Oulu 1 --- Käpa 1. Well, my new team did not win and the standard of play could be much better but like Arnold Schwarzenegger said in Terminator 1, ‘I’ll be back.’ In my view, AC Oulu needs more clinical strikers and by the way, more enthusiastic and passionate supporters, then, maybe, they can bounce straight back into the premier league.
|
