ESPOO, Apr 9 (SW) - FC Honka, fourth last year, opened the Women's Championship in Finland with a 2-0 home victory against FC United Pietarsaari, third in the league last season.

Both teams have gone through big changes since last season - new coaches (Marko Saloranta and Juha Lamminen in FC Honka and Carl-August Löf and Henrik Pedersen in FC United) and a great amount of new players - and are expected to be among the three best teams in the Finnish league this year.

FC United had a better start in the match. FC United's Johanna Ekholm delivered a great head ball after 13 minutes but FC Honka's Tinja-Riikka Korpela, the Finnish U20's goalkepper, made a tremendous save. This was to be the turning point in the first half of the match. FC Honka got control of the game and managed to make quick changes from defence to attack, against occasionally some possession play by FC United. In the end of the first half FC Honka's stopper and captain Maija Saari, also in the U20 team, scored a beautiful left-footed corner directly in the goal with no options for FC United's goalkeeper Minna Meriluoto to save.

FC Honka started the second half with a better control than in the beginning of the first half and could have scored once or twice from nice positions. FC United had some good moments in the middle of the half but could not create many crucial situations against FC Honka defenders. The game was settled at 83 minutes by FC Honka's Hanna Saaranen (transferred from HJK), with good ball control after a great pass from left back Veera Vartiainen.

FC Honka's new head coach Marko Saloranta was relieved after the game: "These were very important points for all of us. We defended very well as a team. The back line and our goalkeeper Tinja-Riikka Korpela showed us today how we have to play against teams on this level. We have to play well on our half of the pitch to be able to be constructive on the other half and create controlled attacks".

In other games TiPS smashed FC Espoo with 1-5, after being 1-0 down. Champions HJK easy went past SC Raisio. And FC Sport won in front of todays record crowd of 277 with 2-1 against Ilves Tampere.

FC Honka – FC United 2-0 (1-0)

41. Maija Saari 1-0, 83. Hanna Saaranen 2-0
Attendance: 85

Sport Vaasa – Ilves Tampere 2-1 (1-0)

Goals: 27. Sanna Keromaa 1-0, 49. Sanna Keromaa 2-0, 56. Katariina Henriksson 2-1
Attendance: 277

FC Espoo – TiPS 1-5 (1-2)

3. Johanna Jaakola 1-0, 8. Tiia Kuokka 1-1, 28. Linda Sallstrom 1-2, 57. Katja Karnola 1-3, 66. Krista Dahlberg 1-4, 75. Heini Metsola 1-5
Attendance: 50

HJK Helsinki – SC Raisio 6-0 (4-0)

4. Jessica Thorn 1-0, 16. Sanna Talonen 2-0, 24. Sanna Talonen 3-0, 38. Jessica Thorn 4-0, 56. Eveliina Sarapaa 5-0, 70. Eveliina Sarapaa 6-0
Attendance:124