Tommi Niemelä did not experience the collapse of Ilves as a failure.
For almost 20 minutes, Tommi Niemelä shared his feelings about Ilves’ giant disappointment. Mika Kylmäniemi, AOP
The lynx season turned into a disaster, once again. The trap was made of steel, Ilves was left to lick his wounds.
The head coach Tommi Niemelä commented after the 4–3 loss in the corners of the Nokia Arena that he did not experience the semi-final collapse as a failure.
– This is simply another step towards success at some point.
– Every trip we take together is a success. Whatever we do together at any stage of life, it is always a success, Niemelä characterized.
Niemelä justified his surprising-sounding point of view with the Greek NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo by saying.
– There is such a good video about him on YouTube. Giannis said well after the semifinal loss that there are no failures in sports. There are only steps to success.
For Ilves, this semifinal loss is one more sad chapter in the club’s tragic story.
It was already the fourth semifinal loss in five seasons, and the streak without a championship extends to at least 42 years. Above all, this year’s collapse will go down in history with capital letters.
Ilves first led the semifinal series 2–0, but lost four matches in a row. In the sixth game, it was 3–0 in the lead after the opening set, but Tappara rose to the level in a short time in the second set and pressed for victory in the final set.
What the hell happened in the second period when Ilves crumbled completely?
– Jäähy opened the door a little at the beginning of the set, and it was perhaps too easy for Tappara to get the goal.
– At that point, the weakness of our fighting play was momentarily very strong. We didn’t win the starts, we didn’t win those second pucks, and we didn’t win any pucks on the offensive end and not even on the defensive end, Niemelä regretted.
Fear of missing out?
In the case of Ilves, it has been talked about for years that the mental ballast crushes the team season after season. Niemelä denied that this year’s collapse was due to the fear of losing.
– I don’t believe in that, but of course everyone always experiences it in their own way. I can’t believe that any player at that stage, when he is playing a game and is in the heart of that game, would think about anything else but what should be done in the next exchange.
– Probably such things accumulate in the game, that if you lose a fighting situation and it becomes an own goal, then it might increase the feeling of “damn me”, Niemelä thought.
According to Niemelä, Tappara clearly changed his playing after the first two matches. This partly suffocated Ilves.
– They are not fools that if they are behind in terms of game. Then you have to be able to make some changes. In Tappara, the right steps were certainly taken to ensure that we no longer got as many goal chances from direct attacks as we did until the triple play.
– And that’s where we made a mistake in the fourth game, that we had a lot of equal strength attacks where the puck performance was wrong. Maybe I should have been a little more blunt. We weren’t as good as Tappara when it came to creating scoring chances, Niemelä ynänsi.
“A clear failure”
Especially Ilves fell behind Tappara when playing in special situations. In particular, Ilves’ superior game practically did not achieve anything, except for the smashing of the second game.
– It practically had the wrong kind of rhythm all the time. We did not achieve such that all five players started to play the game at the same time towards the goal.
– It’s the kind of thing that is definitely a clear failure.
In Ilves, the assistant coach is responsible for playing with superiority Kari Kaltobut Niemelä took the matter to his account.
– I bear responsibility for everything when we think about the result. No one else.
Ilves’ season ends in the familiar way in the bronze medal match. This time it’s up to you Raimo Helminen Saipa
