AC Oulu VS IFK Mariehamn

AC Oulu welcome visitors from Åland at Raatin stadion in Oulu on Saturday for a very import Veikkausliiga match for both teams. Veikkausliiga is the highest tier of the Finnish football league structure and as a Finnish national I of course follow this league very closely and have watched almost all Veikkausliiga matches and all of both of these teams' matches this season. Both teams desperately need points to avoid relegation at the end of the season and I am not at all sure neither of them will as this really is a battle of two pretty bad teams. AC Oulu have seven points and IFK Mariehamn from Åland have eleven. However, in my power ratings that illustrate the teams' overall class at the moment I rate the hosts as the ninth bets team in Veikkausliiga and IFK Mariehamn are tenth. Let's take a look at why I recommend my fans to take AC Oulu -0.5 goals handicap. The probability estimation is 49%.

Neither team are in good shape but Oulu have still improved their level lately and several new players have joined the team in recent weeks and the team is clearly better now compared to the start of the season. The most imprtant of these new players is Nigerian Usman Sale whi is a very quick offensive player. Before joining AC Oulu he played for KuPS Kuopio and before that in he earned his salary in Norway. In addition to being quick he is a very athletic player and let's hope he can cause trouble for the weak IFK Mariehamn defense. They have allowed twenty-one goals this season which is the third biggest number in Veikkausliiga. If AC Oulu had had the players they now have available I strongly believe they would have at least twelve points in the pocket at this point. They have played better than recent results suggest and I believe we will not find valuable odds for them for long anymore. In their latest match they played pretty okay versus Ilves as clear underdogs despite losing 1-0. In the first half I would even say they were even the better team but seemed to somehow run out of energy in the second half. However, we must remember that Ilves are a better team than AC Oulu - and a lot better than today's opponents IFK Mariehamn and Tampere is never an easy place to visit. AC Oulu had 56% ball possession in this match and they have improved their ability to keep the ball a lot in recent weeks and are capable of long, slow attacks too, not just counter attacks as was the case for the most of the time early season. In the match before visiting Ilves in Tampere they visited SJK Seinäjoki who are a team on the rise lately but AC Oulu challenged them well and easily could have grabbed a point despite being clear underdogs. Again they were able to keep the ball well (54% possession) and overall the match was indeed pretty balanced. I did not expect SJK to get an easy win but I was still a little surprised by AC Oulu's promising performance.

There are some good results for AC Oulu too - not just narrow defeats after decent performances: On the 17th of July AC Oulu took a huge win versus dominant HJK Helsinki 2-1 in front of the biggest crowd this season in Oulu! The match was pretty balanced - the hosts had 53% possession but HJK created a little more promising attacks. Having said that, we do have to remember HJK rotated their players quite a lot for this match because of UEFA Champions League qualification matches before and after this match but still many of their best players entered the pitch in the second half. Still AC Oulu proved they are a serious football team and also seemed to get a huge mental boost beating HJK who have lost only this one match in Veikkausliiga this season. Anything even close to the level the hosts showed versus SJK and HJK would probably be enough to beat IFK Mariehamn who started the season pretty well but have now lost eight of their latest elevan matches and have always been bad away from home. In their most recent match Inter Turku dominated them and won 2-0 and before that they grabbed a point versus Lahti - the score was 1-1 but Lahti were the better team. I have not seen anything positive in them for a long time and beating KTP a few weeks ago is not something I will get too excited about as KTP are the worst team in Veikkausliiga.

本译文使用有道机器翻译，仅供参考：

周六，奥卢在奥卢的拉廷球场欢迎来自Åland的观众，这是一场对两支球队都非常重要的韦考斯利加比赛。kkausliiga是芬兰足球联赛中排名最高的球队，作为一名芬兰国民，我当然非常关注这个联赛，并且几乎观看了所有veikausliiga的比赛以及这两支球队本赛季的所有比赛。两支球队都迫切需要积分来避免赛季末降级，我不确定他们会不会，因为这是两支非常糟糕的球队之间的战斗。AC奥卢有7分，Åland的IFK玛丽厄姆有11分。然而，在我的实力评级中，目前我对东道主的排名是第九，在Veikkausliiga和IFK Mariehamn是第十。让我们来看看为什么我建议我的球迷把AC -奥卢的进球限制在0.5个。概率估计是49%。

这两支球队的状态都不太好，但奥卢最近仍然提高了他们的水平，最近几周有几名新球员加入了球队，与赛季初相比，现在的球队明显更好了。这些新球员中最重要的是尼日利亚的乌斯曼·塞尔，他是一个非常快速的进攻球员。在加盟AC奥卢之前，他为库奥皮奥效力，在此之前，他在挪威挣工资。除了速度快，他还是一个非常运动的球员，让我们希望他能给IFK Mariehamn薄弱的防守带来麻烦。本赛季他们已经丢了21个球，这是维考斯利加的第三个进球。如果AC -奥卢有他们现在拥有的球员，我坚信他们现在至少能拿到12分。他们的表现比最近的结果要好，我相信我们不会再为他们找到有价值的机会了。在最近的一场比赛中，尽管0:1输掉了比赛，但他们对伊尔维斯的表现还不错。在上半场，我甚至可以说他们是一支更好的球队，但在下半场，他们似乎失去了活力。然而，我们必须记住伊尔维斯是一支比AC奥卢更好的球队，而且比今天的对手玛丽厄姆和坦佩雷都要好得多。AC奥卢在这场比赛中控球率为56%，最近几周他们的控球能力得到了很大的提高，他们也有能力进行长时间的慢速进攻，而不是像赛季初的大多数时候那样只是反击。在对阵伊尔维斯之前，他们拜访了SJK Seinäjoki，后者最近处于上升阶段，但AC奥卢很好地挑战了他们，很容易就能拿到一分，尽管明显处于劣势。他们再次控球很好(控球率54%)，整体上比赛确实很平衡。我没有料到SJK会轻松取胜，但我还是对AC -奥卢充满希望的表现感到惊讶。

AC -奥卢也有一些不错的成绩——不仅仅是在出色的表现后以微弱的差距落败:7月17日，在本赛季奥卢观众最多的情况下，AC -奥卢以2-1大胜赫尔辛基HJK !比赛相当平衡——主队控球率为53%，但HJK创造了一些更有希望的进攻。话又说回来，我们必须记住，香港在这场比赛中轮换了很多球员，因为比赛前后都有欧冠资格赛的比赛，但仍然有很多最好的球员在下半场上场。尽管如此，奥卢证明了他们是一支严肃的球队，而且击败了本赛季只输了一场在维考斯利加的比赛的HJK似乎也得到了巨大的精神鼓舞。只要能达到东道主对阵SJK和HJK的水平，就足以击败玛丽汉姆。玛丽汉姆本赛季开局不错，但现在输掉了最近的8场比赛，而且在客场一直表现不佳。在最近的一场比赛中，国际图尔库控制了他们，并以2-0获胜。在那之前，国际图尔库在与拉赫蒂的比赛中拿到了一分——比分是1-1，但拉赫蒂比他们强。我已经很长一段时间没有在他们身上看到任何积极的东西了，几周前击败KTP也不是什么让我兴奋的事情，因为KTP是Veikkausliiga最差的球队。