Football titles for 2009 go to Helsinki and Åland

Home draw on Saturday ensures first HJK Helsinki championship win in six years

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A 1-1 draw at home to Pietarsaari Jaro on Saturday ensured that HJK Helsinki would take the Finnish Veikkaus League title for the first time in six years.
      HJK went into the last round of matches with the whip-hand: if they could only avoid defeat at home to Jaro, they would be crowned winners, regardless of the outcome of the match in Turku between TPS Turku and Honka of Espoo, but if they slipped up then the winner of that other game would sneak past them on goal difference.
     
As it happens there was no winner in Turku, as the 2nd and 3rd-place clubs fought out a goalless draw, and after HJK's Gambian-born striker Dawda Bah scored an equaliser in the 61st minute, the celebrations could begin.
      HJK finished the 26-match season with 52 points, three ahead of Honka, who pipped TPS on goal difference. For Honka, it was the second successive season in the runner-up spot.
     
Curiously enough, the HJK coach Antti Muurinen does not know if he will be in the same job next season, despite delivering the title trophy and a place in Europe for the 2010/2011 campaign.
      Muurinen has had a rough passage this season, with pressures from within the club and outside, and he will be renegotiating his contract this week.
      The championship title was the 22nd in HJK's history. They are still the only Finnish club to have made it through to the lucrative group stages of the European Champions League.
     
At the other end of the table, a last-round 1-0 victory at home was not enough to save RoPS of Rovaniemi from relegation to the 1st Division, while JJK of Jyväskylä will have to play off against KPV of Kokkola, who finished second in this year's 1st Division table.
      The First Division champions AC Oulu gained automatic promotion.
     
On the women's side, matters were in fact settled some weeks ago, and Åland United could even afford to lose their last match - against struggling Puistola - and still won by five points from Honka of Espoo.
      Åland United are a relatively young club, founded in 2004, and this was their first taste of glory, after finishing 4th in the table in 2006 and 2007.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Inter secure first-ever Finnish league title (27.10.2008)

Links:
  Veikkaus League (Wikipedia)
  HJK Helsinki

Helsingin Sanomat