Inter welcome HIFK from the capital city Helsinki at the Veritas Stadium in Turku on Monday in an interesting match betting-wise. Neither teams is in terrific shape at the moment, especially judging by the latest results.. Last Thursday I recommended my fans to bet on Inter to lose in Hungary versus Puskas Academy and that pick was easily won as the Hungarian club beat Inter Turku 2-0. However, that was an UEFA Conference League qualification match and now Inter can concentrate on Veikkausliiga and finally get back on the winning track. I do believe they have a very good chance to do so versus HIFK Helsinki. Let's take a more close look..

According to my power ratings Inter are the third best team in Veikkausliiga, the highest level of Finnish football and a league I, as a Finn myself, follow very closely. The point differences in the standings are now very big behind the dominant leader HJK Helsinki but during the rest of the season I do believe Inter will prove their class challenging KUPS for the second place and at least securing third place and UEFA Conference League qualification for next season too. In fact I think Inter performed well, better than expected versus Puskas Academy, a very strong opponent this last Thursday and also in the first leg one week before. The clearly better team, from a lot more competitive league qualified to the next round of qualification but Inter can be proud of the way they fought and even forced Puskas to a 1-1 at home in Turku. I of course watched both matches and was delighted to see my pick for my fans (Puskas -0.5 goals) being a winner but I have to admit had Inter now allowed a very early goal (an own goal by Anthony Annan) on the match might have been a tight one! Even in Hungary Inter could defend well and Puskas did not have too many dangerous scoring chances which surprised me a bit despite 1-0 lead being the score that would take Puskas to the next qualification round. Inter did have only one good scoring chance - a 2-1 attack where Inter legend and fan favorite Timo Furuholm assisted to a very talented young striker Benjamin Källman but sadly for the Finns a Puskas player only just managed to ruin their plans to the score 1-1. Let's hope they can finally find the net versus HIFK. Inter have had enough time to recover from the match physically and I think they, despite losing, in fact got a confidence boost from being able to compete with a strong team even away from home. Inter against all expectations even had 60% ball possession which is a pretty interesting statistic.. This performance highlights my claim that Inter are very good team for  pretty low by European standards Veikkausliiga and do have hidden potential. I do want emphasize that despite not winning since the 18th of June Inter have not really played a bad match for a very long time and it is worth noticing that they have faced pretty good teams in recent weeks. A positive thing for the hosts is also that they have had a lot of injury concerns this season, which has costs them many points, but now only Martti Haukioja and Agustin Pastoriza are missing. 

HIFK Helsinki, on the other hand, are in decline. They performed better than expected early season but I now they have dropped to 7th place and will need to improve a lot to make it to top-6 and Championship Group. I currently rate HIFK as the 8th best team in Veikkausliiga and the difference in class compared to Inter is definitely bigger than the league table suggests. HIFK does have a solid defense but they have not scored a goal in four of their latest matches and scored only once in the six of their most recent matches. Yes, they could have scored a few more goals with some luck but they without a doubt do lack a lot of offensive creativity which should make their coach and fans very worried. Even versus a pretty poor team HIFK Mariehamn they were the worse team and did not clear almost anything offensively. HIFK have the best fans of all the clubs in Veikkausliiga and in Helsinki this would probably be a very tight battle in the Veikkausliiga and whilst some of  HIFK fans will for sure travel 170 km Turku but I do not believe this is the match where HIFK return back to the winning track. Inter Turku have good fans too but most importantly a good a solid defense and dangerous strokers Källman and Furuholm should be able to create at least three or four quality scoring chances  - hopefully enough for one or two goals. On the other hand HIFK not being to score would not surprise me at all.

 To sum up, the clearly stronger hosts have some 60% chance to win so I recommend my fans to take Inter -0.5 goals.