© Press release
KPV, which dropped out of the Veikkausliiga last autumn, has been in the headlines more in recent weeks due to its non-sporting success. The Kokkola team left Ykkönen for the season as a pre-favorite, but the poor points balance led the head coach to Jani Uotinen was given a shoe on Saturday.
The real bomb then fell on Monday, when KPV announced that it had appointed Uotinen ‘s successor as a person of conflict Miika Juntusen. Juntunen got a flying start to his KPV career on Wednesday when his coached team knocked out the coach’s debut in serial debut SJK Academy 4-0.
42-year-old Jani Uotinen made an excellent result in the seasons 2018-2019 as the coach of the SJK Academy in Kakkonen. He got a wash in KPV in the middle of last season and was close to keeping the team in the Veikkausliiga from late autumn. However, the retriever came through the qualifiers. When the first five games of the new season brought only five points, the sand in Uotinen’s hourglass had run out.
Now Evening News writethat the fate of Uotinen had been sealed even before Saturday’s Ostrobothnian derby, which KPV lost to VPS 1-4. However, the coach himself was not informed of the decision made before the game. A win over the VPS would hardly have saved Uoti either.
When the final whistle rang, KPV’s financier rushed Matti Laitinen immediately from the stands to the field and rudely fired Uotinen. The coach and the team didn’t even have time to go to the locker room corridor until Laitinen informed Uotinen. The information has been confirmed to Ilta-Sanomat by “several different sources”.
However, Uotinen still had to say goodbye to the team and held a press conference as usual. He made the trip from Vaasa to Kokkola on the team bus.
Miika Juntunen was also present at the VPS-KPV match. Juntunen denies that he followed the match with Matti Laitinen or that he negotiated a coaching session before Uotinen’s kicks. However, the men were in touch a week before the VPS match.
– I was a private person in the match, Juntunen says.
– My way has always been to do a lot of work. I was in negotiations with a club other than KPV. I was watching a VPS match to see how KPV would play in case something happened. Nothing was talked about in advance.
– But you saw it from the game show that something is wrong with KPV. The coach got fired three minutes after the match.
IS supplier Janne Oivion also includes the coach’s son Matias Juntusen the transfer to KPV is close. 28-year-old Matias Juntunen has scored three goals in seven matches at Kakkonen OLS. He has played for many seasons in OLS, previously coached by his father Miika Juntunen. Matias Juntunen has played a total of 135 matches in Ykkönen.
Also read: Tough beat for VPS in derby – Kymenlaakson Derby solved dramatically with extra time