Lillestrom vs SJK

Lillestrom host SJK for this UEFA Conference League qualification second leg at Åråsen Stadion in Lillestrom in front of loud fans. The hosts are a Norwegian team and the visitors are from my home country, from the city of Seinäjoki more specifically. Many of my fans already know that despite Finland having a decent national team – that even made it to EURO 2020 last summer – the level of Veikkausliiga is unfortunately quite low. HJK, the best and richest club in Finland is capable of surprising really good teams every now and then and did make it to Europa League group phase back in 2014 beating for example FC Copenhagen and even Torino at home. Indeed, I keep writing about the home advantage in my analysis on international club competitions but Finnish club struggle even more often than visitors on average away from home.. This year all four Finnish teams playing in Europe have lost all of their matches away from home. HJK lost in Riga 1-2 and 0-5against Plzen. Inter Turku lost 0-3 in Kosovo and SJK lost 0-1 in Tallinn.

No other Finnish team than HJK have achieved any true success in UEFA’s competitions for a very long time. Artificial turf is nowadays common in Finland but most teams in Europe, including Lillestrom have grass at their home stadium. This factor must not be forgotten.. Finninsh clubs, including SJK, are capable of organized defending and some players even have a decent individual skill level. The main problems in international matches are the low tempo in Veikkausliiga and inefficiency in scoring. The tempo in most of the international matches is just too high resulting in fatigue and inaccurate passing etc. SJK surely wont get more than a few promising scoring chances here so they would have to be very effective.. They need a win as they lost 0-1 last week in Seinäjoki. They were not without a chance in this match and I would say a draw would not have been undeserved but still the Norwegians showed the difference between the teams is substantial. They had much more scoring chances and shots on target. SJK will have to risk here and this will not end well. 2-0 or 3-1 are probable final scores..