In a weekend match in week 5, on Sunday Oct 16th, Ilves will travel to Oulu to battle Oulu in a clash of these two closely matched Veikkausliiga teams. The game day is forecasted to be a cloudy and cool day, with daytime temperatures of only 8 degrees, which will make playing unpleasant. 1st placed Oulu is fresh off their 1-2 loss against VPS. Joonas Vahtera scored the first goal for VPS in the 26th minute, but Rafael Floro got the equalizer for Oulu in the 34th minute. Oulu should be reasonably happy with their recent performance, earning 18 points in their last 10 matches, while 4th placed Ilves is fresh off their 1-0 shutout win against Lahti. Ariel Ngueukam struck first for Ilves in the 43rd minute, and that was all the excitement the two teams could muster At the end of 90 a dissapointed Lahti couldn’t manage to score, and Ilves took the shutout win. Ilves is looking for direction having earned 11 points in their last 10 matches.
In their last match on Jul 11th, Oulu was victorious by a score of 2 to 0. Niklas Jokelainen scored the first goal for Oulu in the 33rd minute, then Niklas Jokelainen added another in the 50th minute on a feed from Konkkola In the end, Ilves couldn’t muster any offence and Oulu ran away with the shutout win.
Ilves’s most prolific scorer has been Ariel Ngueukam. The Cameroonian attacker has netted three goals over the last five matches. Rasmus Karjalainen has been on a hot streak lately. In the last 5 games, the attacker has scored 4 goals for Oulu.