He's had some problems with injuries, but I'm sure he'll get his chance when he's fully fit. The defensive four wasn't very convincing yesterday when IFK lost away at FC Inter Turku, but Wicks played a great match keeping the scoreline tolerable. According to me, he was without a doubt the man of the match, but ended up second behind Inter's Mika Ojala. Inter won 2 - 0 and occupy the first place in the league, ahead of title favourites HJK and the black horse, JJK from Jyväskylä. IFK Mariehamn is currently in 5th place, three points behind Inter's rivals TPS.
Funicello left IFK Mariehamn for VPS in Vaasa. He never really convinced the manager of his abilities at IFK, so the move is probably a good one. Funicello has had some injury issues in Vaasa, as well, but should soon be able to make his debut for his new club.
I noticed Wicks was not in the line-up for today's match. Apparently he injured his finger in the last match. Google translate version: Josh Wicks injured a finger in the last match and had to sew it If he were playing today it might have been the 1st time we had a YA score an own goal on a YA, as Mason Trafford put one past the replacement keeper in the 5th minute.
Swedish club Örebro SK write on their homepage today that Josh Wicks will come for a trial with the club during the next international break. He will stay there between the 3-6 october.
One of the biggest football news sites here in Sweden has already done an article on the "american thug" and his controversial past, here's a google translate of the page. There's also some quotes in there from Wicks about the possibility of a move to Örebro.
And in yet another update to this thread Örebro announced today that the trial will be postponed because of the hand injury.
Örebro newspaper NA write today that the club is still interested in Wicks and that they will travel to watch him play in the finnish league on monday. His main competition to become the new goalkeeper seem to be former Malmö goalkeeper Jonas Sandqvist who has been training with the club recently. I don't really rate Sandqvist very highly so if Wicks is any good then he's probably the better choice.
What's going on with Tabe these days? It seemed like he had a bright future and he is certainly built like a beast. Then he moved to Finland, which in this case is like moving off the face of the earth because I haven't heard a damn thing about him since.
Tabe is a starter for RoPS in the top division. He has had couple of spells out due to injury, but has started 19 of the 29 games they have played this year. He was subbed out of two of those 19 games. He has picked up a goal, a red card, and five yellow cards this season. He also started their only national cup game, and 4 of their 6 league cup games picking up a yellow and red card as they failed to advance from the group stage. RoPS is all but relegated as they are at the bottom of the league 8 points from safety with 3 games left. They have given up 70 goals which is the most in the league and 18 more than any other team.
To be fair though, they did lose a number of players over that match-fixing scandal. From looking at the lineups on match reports from time to time, it seems they don't even have a full bench for some of their matches.
Well, it looks like the Örebro interest in Wicks remain although they seem to also be exploring many other options for their new goalkeeper at the same time. They write today on their homepage that both Wicks and canadian goalkeeper Tomer Chencinski will come and train with the team during the next week.
Well, as you can see in the picture he is currently training with Örebro now. I have no futher news about that though, but more on topic for this thread about his time in Finland: I read today that in a finnish sports magazine he had the highest average rating of all the players in the entire league this season. So apparantly he has been a big success over there.
The more I look into Ekenäs, it seems like there's a broader story there though I can't quite make heads or tails of it. It seems like there's at least one if not two American coaches (Mike Keeney and Stefano Franciosa) there. And while their current roster only names one American... GK Steven Perry: http://www.eif.fi/fotboll/herrar/spelare ... it seems Kyle Hoffer recently signed there: http://www.uslsoccer.com/home/561450.html And a few others (Colin Givens, John Miller, maybe more?) also may have appeared for them in some capacity this year. Can anyone translate this? http://www.eif.fi/nyheter/ny-traenare-foer-herrlaget Or this? http://svenska.yle.fi/nyheter/artikel.php?id=227498 This club has a bit of an American history with Chris Corcoran and Garry Lewis making stops there.
From what I can gather from my limited Swedish and Finnish, Mike Keeney was the coach and has moved on to be the assistant coach at Mypa a Veikkausliiga club. Francisco came in as the head coach for Ekenas at Mike's recommendation. Ekenas finished first in their division and will now move up to the Kakkonen.
That's good to hear. That is the level where it becomes easier to find results, stats and match reports so it will be much easier to follow these guys.
It's actually the exact opposite Francisco has been their coach and was the one that helped them get promoted, however Franciscos family was still back in the US so he has returned to look for coaching jobs there. Mike Keeney has now been brought in to become the new coach with a 2+1 year contract. Keeney was a player who retired early because of injury and has since worked 17 years as a trainer in the US and UK. He has apparantly been in Finland for the last four years now, spending the first two in unknown roles at HJK and Viikingit. Then the last two years he has been assistant manager at MyPa. Francisco being celebrated after the promotion. Hoffer said in another article that it was his agent who had a connection with the club and that Corcoran and Lewis got there through the same guy. Doesn't mention what his name is though.
The Örebro coaches seem to like what they've seen from both Wicks and the other auditioning GK Chencinski. Looks like they will take one of the two, perhaps deciding as early as Tuesday. http://www.radiotv.aland.fi/sport.con?iPage=5&iArticle=41058 Wicks is back with Mariehamn for the moment. http://na.se/sporten/fotboll/inspark/1.1425899--vill-bli-klara-fort-som-mojligt-
Speculation among Örebro fans seem to be that the club has another keeper (probably Kristoffer Nordfeldt) as their main target but that it's a very uncertain thing so the club is holding off on making any final decision on Wicks until they know for sure what will happen with that other deal.
Örebro just announced that they have signed Sandqvist as their new keeper so I guess that means no contract for Wicks.
According to a Finnish sports magazine that rates all the players' performances each week Josh Wicks was the highest rated player in the league last season.
Chencinski has been ruled out, but Örebro are still considering Wicks despite signing another 'keeper.
Well, Örebro actually did end up signing the canadian Chencinski as their new second keeper. I guess that means Wicks stay in Finland for now, but it still seems pretty likely that some higher ranked Scandinavian club will pick him up this winter after such a successful season.
Mariehamn have brought a couple GKs in for trials as the club feels there is a decent chance Wicks will leave in January. Wicks definitely has the traditional American 'keeper hairline: