The SKN women struggled in Kuopio but take a 1-0 advantage into next Wednesday’s second leg thanks to Zver’s dream goal.
Kuopio/Vienna. Only since 2018 has the KuPS football club in Kuopio, Finland – well known to ski jumping fans in this country – had a women’s section, which has been able to adorn itself with its first championship title since last year. There is no financially strong patron or prominent name behind it, especially since the Finnish league is 26th in the Uefa ranking, well behind the domestic women’s Bundesliga (16th). Mainly Finns play here (none of them were in the EM team squad), a few legionnaires (including Gentjana Rochi, who recently lost 0:10 to the ÖFB team with North Macedonia). It was the great unknown – and presented St. Pölten with difficulties in the first leg of the second qualifying round of the Champions League.
As rarely as Austria’s serial champion is challenged nationally, the first three victories in just as many rounds (16:1 goals) are evidence of this this year, so unusual was the Finnish resistance. Kuopio didn’t wait, but pressed and that unsettled the SKN defense. The Lower Austrians lacked the order and calm in possession that otherwise support the build-up of the game. Instead, you were often a step too late, both mentally and literally, especially on the wings, where Kuopio was putting a lot of pressure on. The only thing the Finns lacked was callousness in front of the goal.