Oulu – KuPS

As most of you have noticed, we have opened our eyes to Finnish top football. Why? First of all, there is not much happening in the middle of the week in this part of the season on the football front. But in Finland they often play in the middle of the week, so that is interesting in itself. But after studying this league for a while, we have found that this is a league with quite playable objects. A bit like today's games, where we think we have found gold. Yes, you read that right, found gold. It was the Swedes who once went to the USA to dig for their gold in the 1994 World Cup. We will settle for a trip to their neighbors.

KuPS is the best team in Finland at the moment. The reigning league champions are also leading the league this season. It has been a bit variable. But they seem to be on a good track now. Today's opponent Oulu, who came in 9th last year, has had a terrible start to the league, and after half a season has only taken 8 points so far. With that, the team is at the very bottom of all 12 teams.

Oulu – A little better, but not good enough.

Oulu has had a terrible season, and as I said only has 8 points so far. It should be said that the team in their last 2 games has had a slight rise in form. They beat VPS at home with 2-1 last in the series, and in the game before that had a victory in the cup with 2-0 over SJK. For them a long-awaited upturn. But here they meet the team that won the division last year, and are on the same course this season, so we strongly doubt whether victory will be a foregone conclusion in this one. Goal difference so far this year is 16-28 in 13 games, which indicates 2 goals ahead and 2 goals behind on average. It should therefore hold its own against the best team.

In addition, one of their most important players, Niklas Jokelainen, will have to sit out a yellow card suspension. He will probably be missed. They are known for having a running midfield, and this player is no exception. He is one of their most used players, and it is his first game this season. Otherwise, Danny Barrow is still injured, which is a loss in attack. The team looks a bit thin up front, and they would have probably needed every man. So what about today's opponent? Let's take a look.

KuPS – One of two teams to win the league.

One thing that has been read and agreed upon is that KuPS is one of two teams that will win the series. To put it this way, only they and HJK have won the series in the last 8 seasons. They won the series last year, and probably want to defend the title. Then games like this have to be won.

Here they face the team that is at the bottom of the table. They have been a bit inconsistent lately, but in the last two games it seems they have found their way back to the standard they want to be at. They beat title challenger HJK 3-0, before most recently winning 6-2 against Gnistan.

It was a match where an old acquaintance from Norwegian football scored a hat-trick. Agon Sadiku, who signed ahead of the 2023 season for RBK, clearly had a better day at work in the domestic league than he had in RBK. He probably never got the chance. But after playing 17 games for FC Emmen in the Netherlands, he has returned home. Now he has 5 goals and 1 assist in 13 games so far. Maybe this is what his career needed. Or maybe it is the injury to Paulo Ricardo in defense that is important. He is normally a regular in the back ranks. But he has not played the last 3 games. It has been going well.

The team otherwise doesn't score too much, and has a goal difference of 25-15. But that means that the average is about 2 goals scored and 1 goal conceded. It will still give a good amount of points during a season. It's close at the top of the table, and every point is important in the fight for the league title. So we think they'll take this one. Can you get odds on that? Let's see.

Conclusion – The best team wins.

Let's say it right away. Here we have to go for the favorite to win. We mentioned that we had found gold, because in what other league would you get playable odds on such a clear favorite? Not in the big leagues that's for sure.

The teams have met 3 times in the last calendar year. 1 cup match, 1 training match and 1 league match. All matches won by KuPS. In fact, Oulu has only lost 1 time in the last 10 matches, so the statistics speak for a bet in favor of the favorite as well. We therefore choose the following bet.

Finland at 17:00: Oulu - KuPS: KuPS win (1.86)