This is the third post about Veikkausliiga 2020 squads and the player ages. You can find the first two here and I'd suggest reading those as well:
In this post I will take a quick look at the rosters of the remaining 6 Veikkausliiga teams.
Inter Turku, Inter (2nd in 2019)
Inter had a very good season finishing second in 2019. They return less than 50% (about 43%) of their minutes from last season, so there is quite a lot of turnover in the squad. That 43% means that only HJK returns less minutes from last year. The upcoming season will be well-respected coach Jose Riveiro's second season in charge of Inter.
Inter Squad in 2020
Inter's team is the 3rd oldest measured with average age and 6th oldest with median age. The reason can be seen from the graph as Annan, Moisander, Furuholm & Álvaro Muñiz skew the age distribution somewhat. Inter has quite many new faces and delightfully some very interesting and promising young players as well.
18 year-old Noah Nurmi comes on a loan from Danish Superliga side Esbjerg and should be featured regularly. There are many other Finnish Youth National Team faces alongside him, so interesting to see how Riveiro will spread the minutes amongst his players.
Helsingin IFK, HIFK (7th in 2019)
HIFK finished comfortably in mid-table and was not in any danger of relegation last season. They return about 65% of their minutes but also have a lot of new faces for the upcoming season. Tor Thodesen starts his second season as the coach of HIFK.
HIFK Squad in 2020
HIFK's roster is one of the older ones in the league (5th oldest by average and 4th oldest by median). Thodesen did tend to give playing time to more senior guys as Joel Mattsson was the only U22 (or U24) player to play more than 50% of available minutes. Some new signings seem slightly risky but will be very interesting to see how Yaghoubi and Mattila, for example, perform with HIFK.
The graph shows why Matias Hänninen, Jukka Halme and Jani Bäckman are respected by HIFK fans. Lots of years at the club amongst them. Not really sure what to expect from HIFK as a team in 2020.
IFK Mariehamn (6th in 2019)
IFK Mariehamn managed to get into the top six (Veikkausliiga Championship League) which is not bad. They return only about 45% of their minutes so there have been a lot of changes in their team this offseason
IFK Mariehamn Squad in 2020
Mariehamn's squad is quite young with a median age of 23.4 years. This ranks them as 3rd youngest for the upcoming season. Besides Oskari Forsman there are not any players over 30 in the squad who played any minutes last season and most of the remaining core is at their peak age or a little younger.
Mariehamn lost some good players and will most likely lose Dylan Murnane as well (he is listed as without a club in transfermarkt and therefore is not shown on the graph). They did get some experienced replacements like Mikko Sumusalo & Kalle Taimi to the full back positions though.
There are some new young players in the squad as well, like Niilo Mäenpää, Albion Ademi and Maximo Tolonen. Interested to see how they will do this season.
FC Haka, Haka (promoted from Ykkönen)
Haka's squad graph is quite different from the ones we have seen so far. They return about 80% of their minutes from last season. The season was very good as coach Teemu Tainio's squad dominated the Finnish second tier Ykkönen. Haka lost only once during during the 27 game season and beat TPS, who finished second, by 19 points.
Haka Squad in 2020
None of the players who return from last year's have turned 30 yet. They did sign Medo (the ex-KuPS and HJK player) and Hero Markkanen in the off-season to bring in some experience.
Haka has some super-interesting young players in Popovitch, Friberg and Ojala. The obvious choice as the one to watch is Salomo Ojala who scored 23 goals with 4 assists during the season. That sums up to a whopping 1.18 scoring contribution per 90 minutes. Very interesting to see how that will transfer into Veikkausliiga.
Another young attacking prospect is Akseli Lehtojuuri. As the graph shows, he did not play a lot (only 231 minutes) but scored 3 goals for a 1.17 goals / 90. He is only 18 and also scored in the Finnish Cup this year.
Coach Tainio has received a lot of praise and for a good reason. Looking forward to seeing how Haka will play in Veikkausliiga.
Turun Palloseura, TPS (promoted from Ykkönen)
TPS managed to get a promotion after beating KPV for the spot in playoffs. They return 72% of their minutes from last season.
TPS Squad in 2020
The two over 30 players have some significant history with TPS and you have to respect Sami Rähmönen for sticking with the team. He has been with the TPS first team continuously since the 2005 season. Many others with long white lines here as well, so TPS seems to be quite sticky with the players. The current roster is in the older half of Veikkausliiga teams but as the graph shows, most of the players are in or near their peak age.
24 year-old Eliécer Espinosa was the team's top scorer in 2019 with 18 goals and 0.87 goals / 90. The bookmakers are not expecting much from TPS this season but interested to see how the team will fare in Veikkausliiga.
Rovaniemen Palloseura, RoPS (10th in 2019)
RoPS finished just above the relegation line last season. They have had a lot of turnover in the squad and return about 44% of last seasons minutes. Vesa Tauriainen is the new head coach after HJK snatched Toni Koskela back from Rovaniemi. He was promoted from RoPS/2 which is always nice to see.
RoPS Squad in 2020
The RoPS squad is not old but not super young either. HJK loanee Kalle Katz and Juho Hyvärinen played quite a lot of minutes as under 20 year olds. Katz renewed his loan from HJK for the upcoming season and is therefore shown as a red dot even though he did play for RoPS in 2019. There aren't many players over 30 in the squad and Boris Kokko and Eetu Muinonen are the only returning over 30's for this season. The new over 30's centre-back Tsiskaridze comes from Saudi Professional League.
RoPS has been giving young players a lot of minutes in the recent years. I noticed that Kalle Katz had dropped from my previous table of young players, so after adding him to the mix, RoPS tied FC Lahti with the most players U22 to play at least 5% of the maximum minutes in 2019.
RoPS is not expected to do very well this year so staying in the league would be a good result for them. Rasmus Degerman and Jussi Niska are two young defenders who have taken part in the Finnish Cup games this year. Interesting to see if they will get some minutes in Veikkausliiga also.
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