maccaliam

1000+ fans coming to Hamilton for the opening game will help kickstart an actual (friendly) rivalry between teams.  I’m sure that 1,000+ Forge fans will reciprocate when York9 hosts Hamilton. This is a great way to start off the league. 

I hope York sets aside a decently sized section for away supporters. That should be a real cracker of a match in a smaller stadium. 

I forgot to cross post from the York 9 forum but the number of fans expected to take advantage of the bus ride & ticket offer to Hamilton has swelled from 1000 two weeks ago to 1200 to 1500. 
Also added at last night's pub night by their marketing man Ben Z is an offer for non-SSH fans for return bus ride plus ticket all for $50.00.               SSH get it all for FREE.   

I will be there for sure, probably coming with other Mtl mates!

I'm no longer a 'maybe'.  I'm 100% coming for this and I can't wait!

I’m a season ticket holder too, so I will definitely be there!

Were they ever out of fashion?

Yeah in a single match, I'm sure several La Liga teams have outpossessed Barca. But over a full season, the highest avg possession figure Rayo Vallecano - or the other small Spanish club that generally plays possession based, Las Palmas have had - was "only" below 57%. Or that is what Whoscored tells me at least? So in that sense I think our system was even more extreme. 
Traditionally the club has neglected its own junior teams so the players haven't generally been good enough for the top division level & VPS have had to steal the local players from the other clubs around age 20. But for a couple of the last years the VPS junior teams, too, are adopting a similar-ish Vuorinen influenced philosophy that puts weight on ball control and player development instead of the result itself, and already it seems to be paying off a bit, yesterday in the opening 11 there were 3 young guys from VPS' own academy including the goal scorer. 
What do the fans want to see, though, is a more difficult question. The general sentiment in the stands seems to be very divided in that, while us younger fans are generally more understanding to a structured, possession based game (although it can get frustrating to anyone when it goes wrong and we get 0 shots in a game...), the old fellas who have watched the team for a long time are usually up in the arms and screaming at the head coach every time the ball is passed laterally or, heaven forbid, back to the GK.
He was called to a U21 camp in January where they played an unofficial game against a club team, yes. Don't think Häkkinen has any caps with Canada so it doesn't tie his final adults team choice yet even if he plays an official U21 match for Finland? 
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So finally about the game. VPS beat KuPS 1-0 which was a very good game and result for us, and Häkkinen played the full 90 in the central defense. The 1 thing that struck me was how surprisingly assured he was with the ball already in his debut, not afraid to go for the more difficult pass option and play forward quickly, which allowed us to make some rapid attacks in a couple of instances. 
While it was not perfect game by Jonas by any means, as he lost a couple of physical battles due to his lighter build - the way he looked confident and very much gelled with the team in his first game created a lot of positive sentiment amongst the fans, with nearly everybody agreeing that it looks like he could become a very good player for us. 
On the flipside, Jonas' haircut has already attracted considerable criticism. (It's genuinely terrible.)

We should all have our Jerseys by then so it might be really cool if the section was full of kits from across the league 

So in a couple of hours VPS are gonna play their 2nd game in the Finnish Cup group stage, and since Jonas Häkkinen's paperwork is finally done (it wasn't for the first game...) it also probably means that he's gonna make his debut tonight, possibly from the bench but still. I will be watching him today and post a report later in the other thread. 
Now to make this news a bit more interesting to you I'm gonna post a medium sized wall of background as to what kind of club Jonas has arrived in from Vancouver. 
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So VPS are a Finnish top flight club who come from a city in the West Coast that starts with V. But that is as far as the similarities with Vaasa and Vancouver go as while 70k is a good mid-sized town in Finnish standards, Vancouver kinda shades it in comparison. 
For a long while VPS were just a run of the mill club, traditionally playing long ball football, for most of the time aiming just to survive in the top division and never winning a title since the 40's. So essentially we were one very boring team for any outsider to follow & was justifiably nothing to get excited about when some earlier Canucks played for us (Andrew Barsalona 2014 and Tomer Chencinski 2011). 
But everything changed when the long time assistant manager named Petri Vuorinen rescued the team from relegation in 2015 and was named the head coach before 2016. He decided to change around the entire philosophy of the team, and VPS were suddenly playing very much a possession based game. Along with a renovated stadium with a smooth artificial pitch replacing the old, bumpy stadium mid season, Vuorinen's 4-2-3-1 format genuinely worked and we were actually quite close to title that year. 
So along came 2017 and Vuorinen decided to take his system one step further. Some young coaches were recruited from Portugal to assist Vuorinen, he changed the system to 3-5-2 and turned the football absolutely crazy. Tall defenders who, prior to VPS never looked like they had any business passing the ball, were now passing the ball A LOT. Like, genuinely A LOT. Between the goalkeepers and the 3 stoppers VPS just wouldn't give the ball away, but even under intense pressure from the opposition team, would just pass the ball amongst each other, seemingly more afraid of losing the ball than conceding goals. 
I genuinely believe Vuorinen's system has no precedent in the history of football amongst teams that are not dominant, because when you're a small club and have shite players it just doesn't make any sense to play like Barcelona. But Vuorinen thought otherwise and thought he can develop any lanky tall defenders into Gerard Pique, small young midfield prospects into Xavi and journeymen wingers into Messi. And now put your Swansea example back in your bag, I'm genuinely not exaggerating when I say "no precedent" and "like Barcelona". We ended that season with an average possession of 63.3%, breaking the 70% figure many times. We also had over 600 successful passes a game and almost broke 1000 in one game. Out of ALL clubs in Europe in 2017, only Bayern Munich had higher avg figures in their league than us. Barcelona was 3rd, PSG 4th and City 5th. 
And for the first half of 2017, this....worked. The players genuinely adopted the system in time for the league started, and time and again even stronger opposition teams would be surprised by the system, not knowing at all how to combat "Vepsulona" because usually the worse team doesn't keep the ball. Of course we would still sometimes concede silly goals, losing possession in the ever-going rondo in our own penalty box, but regardless of them mid-summer we found ourselves 2nd in the league standings, and in Europa League qualifiers we surprised the 10 times richer and larger Olimpija Ljubljana 1-0, 0-1; they clearly hadn't scouted us and didn't know what hit them when the VPS carousel set off and left them looking like a low league club. And the 30 times larger Bröndby that was our next opponent beat us 2-0 at their home but at our stadium we had the advantage of a smooth artificial pitch. We took the control of the game from the first whistle, scored an early 1-0, the entire stadium if not the city was pumped and bouncing... and then our GK scored a ridiculous own goal from a corner. So we won 2-1 anyway but was not enough. 
Then after the disappointment opposition teams finally learned to combat us in the league too and we hit a rapid downward spiral, not winning in 13 games a row or something. And the way we played suddenly looked absolutely horrible and frustrating, as understandably when a possession based football goes wrong, it looks like the players aren't even trying so we dropped to midfield in the league eventually.
So after the disastrous end to the season, Vuorinen was forced to tone the Barcelona aspect down for 2018 and we had a bit of a "meh" season with a bit of a mishmash playing system, with some signs of the ball playing defensework retained, but the formation reverted back to 4-5-1 and some counter attacks attempted. We still finished 6th but after all this, Vuorinen has now attracted a lot of criticism for refusing to go back to the long ball system. 
So now we're in 2019, and unfortunately the new stadium has turned out to be very expensive to maintain and the cashflow isn't what it used to be. We've had to offload many important players, have a lot of injuries and only got a GK just before the first game, so people are expecting us to fight against the relegation mostly. Now I know Häkkinen has also played in the central midfield in the past, but that position has enough players as it is. Whereas apart from Jonas the club has 2 serious stoppers right now. One of them is Timi Lahti who is something of a club legend by now and will not give away his spot in the first 11 any time soon, but the other is the young Eero Auvinen, who didn't really impress last year nor in the first game. So at least the fans are counting on Häkkinen a lot & expecting the young Vancouverian to impress and perhaps even claim the other spot in the opening 11.
Finally, below there is a nice video made by Copa90 about our club & how it is for a foreign footballer to settle in here (albeit from before the new system): 
 
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Tl;dr? In short - Jonas' new club might be fighting against relegation this year, but the club now counts on Jonas a lot because of financial reasons & still have knowledgeable coaches who believe in player development, and the playing system which likely still relies a lot on the defenders' on the ball skills which, hopefully is going to improve Jonas's skills. So I hope it's a good place for him. 

After great reflection (  : I have decided even as TFC season ticket holder I will be at the Forge York 9 CPL opener. Figure there will be about 20 other times I will be down at BMO this year, so what's the big deal with missing one all in the name of Canadian footy.

Yes, that looks likely now.  I was posting this as I had originally thought BSB would be in Captial, which would be too small.
Waiting to hear what they are going to do now. 
 

I’m a season ticket holder too, so I will definitely be there!

I’m a season ticket holder too, so I will definitely be there!

As a season ticket holder, I'll be coming up from Niagara  for the game!
 

I'll be there. Hopefully bringing a group of Hamilton based no soccer (yet) people. 

I would want to attend any get together with the people who have travelled from out of town, there was discusssion today on twitter about the BSB finding a larger bar to accommodate all! 

I’m a season ticket holder too, so I will definitely be there!

RS

Myself and @JDub will be there, we're seasons ticket holders!

I'll be there.

I plan on being there as long as I can make it back for Pacific's opening match.

Am a TFC SSH ( at least for one more year)
Live where the drive to Forge and TFC  matches are about the same
No brainer- the TFC game is dead to me- will give those tickets to anyone ( If I can)
Forge match all the way

Yes he has signed.  
Here is my translation of the Finnish article:
"New player contract - versatile Jonas Häkkinen has signed with Vaasan Palloseura 
Vaasan Palloseura [VPS] has signed a player contract with the young Finnish player Jonas Häkkinen. The contract is 1+1 years. [unspecified whether the option is one way or two way] 
Jonas Häkkinen is a multi-functional player who owns both the Finnish and Canadian passports, and who can play both stopper and defensive midfielder. 
"For the last few years he has played stopper, but before that he has played defensive midfielder, as well", VPS head coach Petri Vuorinen comments. 
Häkkinen has played his entire career in Vancouver, where he has played in the Whitecaps academy. Häkkinen has Finnish parents and he speaks good Finnish, although his native tongue is English. 
"Jonas has trained with us for quite a while already. He came to Finland to uplift his career. Comparing him with other players of his generation (1999), I believe that he has the full potential to succeed in Finnish Premier League", Vuorinen analyzes. 
Very little about this promising player is known in Finland. Contact between the player and the club came through his agent. The youngster has trained with VPS for a month already. 
"The agent suggested that we give Jonas a trial. We decided to take him along and have been judging his play. In the last few years, many young players looking to develop have trialed for us. This time we found a good "match". I do not think many have heard of him here, even though he is Finnish. He is a new face for many here in that sense."
In addition to his playing skills, there is another thing Vuorinen specifically likes about Häkkinen. 
"He has a very tough but healthy attitude about sports and football in general. All that is right", Vuorinen comments. 
Jonas' own interview will be done during November. 
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Since it's my first post, I figure it's fine to use this space to say hello everybody, too. I am a VPS fan from Finland - a cold, stable Northern country, with an under-performing National Team with a history of promising players selecting some another country, and whose general public has an unhealthy obsession with this sticky-sport played on ice.
Suppose this description also explains to you all why I have somehow developed kind of a weird sympathetic affinity towards the "soccer people" in Canada, and hence I have been following your NT for the past few years, including lurking on this forum occasionally. So I figured that now that this guy signed with my local club team, it would be a good excuse to register here too. So I do hope you guys don't mind having me as an "outsider" for our countries are yet to develop a fierce rivalry in this sport. (Although I also wouldn't mind, if in the next few years one developed over Häkkinen's services at the senior level. )
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Would Jonas warrant his own thread, btw? Now that he's going to be playing here, I would be more than glad to contribute with updates on Jonas etc. since I watch every VPS game anyway.

Toje mentioned this to me, then forgot to post it here. Or was going to get to it. Or maybe left it to me:
Chaim Roserie has signed for Alcoyano in Spanish 2B, third tier:
http://www.diarioinformacion.com/deportes/2018/01/27/alcoyano-ficha-interior-zurdo-chaim/1982228.html
Roserie is a short 19 year old playing attacking mid, who was playing for Jacksonville Armada last season, while studying.
Actually the Alcoyano division includes teams from where I am, though they don't visit near Barcelona until April. A very strong team who have been close to getting promoted to Spanish 2A, well run club and good fan base. And a simple, decent stadium. Nice place for the kid to go.