Game previews for May

An old FCGH country lore (german: Bauernregel) goes something like that: The safest sign that Finnish summer is finally here is that the season has finally started, let it snow or not.

In that line, we are excited that all our three adult games start their summer with the first games in May. May will be everything else but a slow start for our first team FC Germania with a fully packed schedule of five games. As the team is again competing in the sixth division (Vitonen) just like last year, there are many old faces like Tavastia, POHU/Simpsons, and Etu-Töölön Urho where our strengthened team can set a trajectory for the whole season already from early on. Also new opponents like Colo-Colo await.

Our development team FCGH/Akademie has three games in may and also plays in the same league as last year (Kutonen, seventh division). There are many new names in the group this year and the goal should be to focus mostly to focus on ourselves and grow together as a team. The first game will already be a true test with the first team playing on the same day so two full roosters have to be gathered.

While the 11vs11 leagues start already at the beginning of May, our 7vs7 hobby team has still some time to polish their skills and game strategies before also they enter the competition at the end of May with their first game. The team will play in the same hobby league as last year with the goal to find a good balance between winning points and having fun together.

Pre-season interview with our head coach Keegan

Keegan, our 11ers head coach answered some of the key ‘burning’ questions before the start of the league season for both 1st team and Akademie team on May 5.

FCGH I now enters its 3rd season in Miesten Vitonen and FCGH / Akademie its 2nd year in Kutonen. How would you compare the starting point and strategy for the teams with last year?
Keegan: I think that the starting point of this season is really optimistic. We are in a good place with a lot of new players in the squad. We have a really fast attacking unit, especially in the 1st team. So we will look to play a little more counter-attacking football than we did in the past. For the Akademie team we have a lot of quality and a much deeper player pool all over the pitch this year.

You got quite many new players over the last months. How have they been integrating into the 11ers? 
Keegan: I can’t even count exactly how many new players we have! We brought in a lot of really good quality players to strengthen the squad. Another team from the 5th Division and one of our former opponents, FC Ruisku, has stopped existing. Their most committed and best quality players have decided to join our team as a result of that. They are really good guys and are enjoying the community of FC Germania.

Managing close to 50 players in two teams is quite a challenge. How have you organised yourselves?
Keegan: This is our second season with two teams. This season, instead of having really clear definitions between the first team and the Akademie team, we’ll have a single player pool. Players who are not selected for the first team in a given week will be eligible to play in the Akademie team. This is possible because of the extra depth that we have, with so many good quality players joining. It will take a little bit of time, especially in the Akademie team, to build an identity. But that is something we hope the players will be committed enough to work on. Having committed players who are able to attend on a regular basis as much as possible is something we really want to stress for this season.

You had some resounding victories in pre-season matches lately. How are they to be rated with a view to the upcoming season?
Keegan: Indeed, we had some heavy victories, including an 8-0 win over FC FC, a team we had never beaten before. Furthermore, we bet Chicken Wings, a mixed team of its 4th and 6th Division players, 8-2. And even our 0-2 Cup loss against a team from the 3rd Division was a really good showing from our team. From all these results everybody is really positive about what we are capable of doing, especially from an attacking perspective where we have a lot of speed and quality. Our players are very excited to get started with the league, have fun playing together and score goals.

The first team’s goal for the last year was clear: Promotion to Nelonen. You made it to the promotion round. Would you have the same ambition for 2022? 
Keegan: We haven’t had a meeting to set official goals for the team yet, but that will be coming very soon. If you take our practice match results, you would say that we should absolutely be trying to push for promotion. But I’m not going to impose such a goal on our squad. What I think is most important for the season is that we have a group of committed and strong players that work hard for each other and the team week in week out, and that we take it game by game.

If we perform as well as we can in all of the matches of the season, I’m pretty sure that at the end of the season we will be promoting to Nelonen. But you have to play the games. There are some strong teams in our group that have potential to give us a really good challenge. One of them is Ellas, a team that we played in the Cup last year and who were relegated from Nelonen.
There will be some challenging matches, but I’m confident with our squad that when we play to the best of our abilities, we can beat anybody in 5th Division.

Any final words you would like to share?
Keegan: Personally, as a player who is getting to the end of his playing career I am currently injured once again, with a broken hand. While this is a bit frustrating for me as a player, it allows me to focus even more on the management and coaching for the next couple of weeks. I will have to work hard as a player if I even want to get a chance to play later this season in the first team. But I’m looking forward to the challenge of both coaching and playing yet again.

In a nutshell

FC GERMANIA: MIESTEN VITONEN

(Up to date schedules, results and table can be found at SPL)

  • MA 5.5. 20:00 HJK/Yellow vs  FC Germania
  • MA 16.5. 18:00 FC Germania vs Etu-Töölön Urhot
  • TI 24.5. 20:20 Tavastia vs FC Germania
  • TI 31.5. 20:00 FC Germania vs FC POHU/Simpsons
  • TI 31.5 20:20 Colo-Colo vs FC Germania

FCGH/AKADEMIE: MIESTEN KUTONEN

(Up to date schedule, results and table can be found at SPL)

  • TO 5.5. 19:30 FC Germania/Akademie vs Chicken Wings/2
  • SU 8.5. 15:45 FC Germania/Akademie vs FC Inter Vuosaari
  • TI 17.5. 20:40 FC Kontu/Kupa vs FC Germania/Akademie

FC GERMANIA HKI 2015: MIEHET HARRASTE VITONEN

(Up to date schedule, results and table can be found at SPL)

  • SU 22.5. 18:45 FC Germania Hki 2015 – FC Kaljamahat