KuPS vs KTP

KuPS welcome visitors from Kotka at Väre Areena in Kuopio for this Finnish Veikkausliiga match. Veikkausliiga is a the highest level of Finnish football and a league I, as a Finn, have followed closely for some thirty years and been betting on with great results for some twenty years. The difference in class is big between the two teams here. KuPS managed to beat a good team - and a lot bigger team by players' total market value - Astana in Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan on Thursday 4-3 in a quite "crazy" match. Let's not forget Astana have even played in the Champions League and Europa League group stage in the past so KuPS' achievement is great indeed! Astana led 2-0 at half-time and seemed to control the match. However, the visitors' Brazilian center-forward Lucas Ragnel scored three goals and KuPS surprisingly advanced to the next round of UEFA Conference League qualification where they will face German Union Berlin next week.

KuPS showed amazing resilience and team spirit to come back from behind and win for the second time in this same competition away from home. In Ukraine they made it 2-2 against Vorskla Poltava a few weeks ago in the dying minutes of the match and scored the 3-2 winning goal in the 30 minutes extra match. Whilst I have of course do realize the long trip to Kazakhstan probably causes some fatigue and the players' concentration might not be 100% here I believe KuPS have got a huge confidence boost from their excellent performances and the betting market is perhaps over-emphasizing the fatigue/ lack of concentration factor here. We have to be realistic and realize that KuPS have were slim chances versus a good German Bundesliga team Union Berlin so I expect them to start with their best lineup - or at least almost the best today. KuPS still have a slim chance to win Veikkausliiga and on the other hand FC Lahti and Inter Turku are only a few points behind so the hosts can not afford to drop points here. Their coach Simo Valakari has also highlighted the importance of doing well in Veikkausliiga and said in his pre-match comments that winning it is KuPS' main goal this season.

How about KTP then? Some of my fans know how bad I think think they are! They have won just one match in Veikkausliiga this season and I can assure you they are even worse than recent results suggest. I would not be at all surprised if they were to never get another win during the rest of season! They have managed to take quite a few draws this season but in many of these matches they did not really deserve anything in terms of expected goals and overall impression on the events on the pitch. For KTP both defense and lack of offensive skill are a problem at the moment. Their defense has looked vulnerable in almost every match this season and have allowed 26 goal already whereas KuPS have allowed only 11. KTP were very lucky to lose to HJK by once one goal last week-end. They had only three scoring attempts and one shot on goal. In addition HJK's Luis Henrique missed a penalty on the 68th minute. KTP have had a new head coach Spanish (former assistant coach) Gabriel Xatart for several weeks now but their performances have surely not improved! Before the HJK match KTP lost to FC Lahti 0-3 and despite the difference not being quite as clear as the result would indicate on the pitch it was yet another poor performance by KTP. Before that match KTP "stole" an undeserved point in Helsinki from HIFK - the score was 2-2 but HIFK missed a penalty and were clearly the more classy team overall. Before this KTP played a 0-0 draw versus Haka at home. Haka are a pretty limited team especially offensively and failed to make the most of their chances but they still dominated the match. KTP, on the other hand, failed to create much goal expectancy.

To sum up, KuPS are big favorites in front of pretty loud home fans here and have a good chance to win by at least two goals. KuPS -1.5 goals handicap is my pick for my fans.

本译文使用有道机器翻译，仅供参考：

KuPS在库奥皮奥Väre arena欢迎来自Kotka的游客观看芬兰Veikkausliiga比赛。Veikkausliiga是芬兰足球的最高水平和一级联赛，作为一个芬兰人，近30年来一直密切关注，并在大约20年的时间里取得了巨大的成绩。在这里，两队的班级差异很大。周四，在一场相当“疯狂”的比赛中，在哈萨克斯坦的阿斯塔纳，KuPS以4-3击败了一支好球队——从球员的总市值来看，这支球队要大得多。让我们不要忘记阿斯塔纳甚至在过去的冠军联赛和欧罗巴联赛小组赛阶段，所以up的成就确实是伟大的!阿斯塔纳半场以2-0领先，似乎控制了比赛。然而，客队的巴西中锋卢卡斯·拉格内尔(Lucas Ragnel)进了三个球，使该球队意外晋级下一轮的欧洲足球联盟(UEFA)资格赛，他们将在下周对阵德国柏林。

up表现出惊人的韧性和团队精神，从后面回来，并赢得了第二次在同一比赛的客场。在乌克兰，他们在几周前对阵波尔塔瓦的比赛最后几分钟将比分改写为2比2，并在30分钟的加时赛中以3比2的比分获胜。同时意识到我有当然做长途旅行到哈萨克斯坦可能导致一些疲劳和球员的浓度可能不是100%,我相信kup有巨大的信心提振他们出色的表演和赌博市场也许是过分强调疲劳/缺乏集中系数。我们必须现实一点，认识到与德甲强队联合柏林队相比，我们的机会很小，所以我希望他们以最好的阵容开始，或者至少是今天最好的阵容。利物浦仍然有微弱的机会赢得维考斯利加，另一方面拉赫蒂和国际图尔库只落后几分，所以东道主不能在这里丢分。他们的教练西莫·瓦拉卡里也强调了在维考斯利加取得好成绩的重要性，并在赛前的评论中表示，赢得这场比赛是他们本赛季的主要目标。

KTP怎么样?我的一些粉丝知道我认为他们有多糟糕!他们本赛季只在维考斯利加赢了一场比赛，我可以向你保证，他们比最近的结果更糟糕。如果他们在余下的赛季中再也没有赢过，我一点也不会感到惊讶!他们本赛季取得了不少平局，但在很多比赛中，他们的预期进球和球场上的整体印象都不值得。对于KTP来说，防守和进攻技能的缺乏都是目前的问题。他们的防守在本赛季几乎每场比赛中都显得很脆弱，已经丢了26个球，而热火只丢了11个。KTP非常幸运，在上周末以一球之差输给了HJK。他们只有三次射门和一次射正。此外，HJK的路易斯·恩里克在第68分钟罚失了一个点球。KTP已经有了西班牙人(前助理教练)加布里埃尔·萨塔特的新主教练几个星期了，但他们的表现肯定没有改善!在与HJK的比赛之前，KTP以0-3输给了拉赫蒂，尽管差距并不像比赛结果那样明显，但这是KTP的又一次糟糕表现。在那场比赛之前，KTP在赫尔辛基“抢”了HIFK不应该得到的一分——比分是2-2，但HIFK错失了一个点球，显然是更优秀的球队。在此之前，KTP在主场与哈卡0:0打平。哈卡是一支相当有限的球队，特别是在进攻上，他们没有充分利用他们的机会，但他们仍然统治了比赛。相反，KTP未能创造出多少目标期望。

总而言之，在主场球迷的热烈欢迎下，本队很有可能以至少两球的优势获胜。