“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KuPS have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jetmir Haliti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at KuPS will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at KuPS, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jerry Voutilainen has written the date down.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Erik Lam has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad12 Oct 2026
14 new faces, and KuPS are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jetmir Haliti is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorginho is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KuPS know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Petteri Pennanen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Clinton Antwi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Jerry Voutilainen will call it something else in private.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jaime Moreno is on it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Aleksi Valakari chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Amadeus Sögaard has written the date down.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KuPS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saikou Touray is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Johannes Kreidl is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KuPS know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at KuPS. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
1‑2 away to the standard of Bodo/Glimt. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saikou Touray is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at KuPS pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
One of our own: Juho Lam joins the KuPS first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Juho Lam is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Clinton Antwi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
14 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KuPS know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
8 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The deal that would have taken Piotr Parzyszek to Gornik Zabrze has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to KuPS with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jetmir Haliti is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. KuPS will try not to make too much of it.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. KuPS lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 101th minute. Inter Turku will replay every second of the added time for a week.
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.03 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. KuPS lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otto Ruoppi did not need any: 8.30, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Jetmir Haliti and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Two goals and a mark of 8.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jetmir Haliti has, at KuPS, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
KuPS close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. KuPS have done the hard part with FF Jaro, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Petteri Pennanen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The fee is $130.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. HJK drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KuPS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Jaime Moreno was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.65. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otto Ruoppi did not need any: 8.07, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.02 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Petteri Pennanen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Will Wilson has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means KuPS have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Petteri Pennanen’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to KuPS.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Clinton Antwi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.