Despite a beautiful goal by Smirnov in the opening minute of the first leg of Premium liiga relegation play-offs, Kalev failed to impress as they, eventually, were forced back to even ground thanks to a Viimsi equaliser half-way through the second half.
Tallina Kalev, who finished third last season, are performing distinctly unconvincingly this season, having only won 8 out of 36 matches in 2024. Their relegation play-off opponents – Viimsi JK – on the other hand, only missed out on automatic promotion by three points and appear to be determined to right that wrong at the expense of the team from the capital city.
Kalev started the match energetically, scoring a header from a cross immediately after kick-off. While Viimsi seemed to be on the ropes for a bit, the home team quickly recovered and showed increasingly competitive football against their Premium liiga opponents. Lehtmets – the Esiliiga top scorer with 31 goals this season – came close to equalising with a long-range effort, only just saved by Forsman, whereas another great effort by Smirnov had gone just wide of the Viimsi post and a couple of good saves from Nõmm kept the Esiliiga side in the game.
Second half continued where the first left off, with Kalev building pressure but, ultimately, not endangering Nõmm’s goal in any real way. In the 57th minute, Viimsi caught Kalev out on a counter-attack, Gohi made a run behind Kalev’s defensive line and scored the equaliser from just outside the penalty area.
The equaliser gave Viimsi some momentum and they began to threaten Forsman’s goal more, but, ultimately, neither side could take control of the game and the final whistle saw the honours split 1-1 with everything to play for in the second leg, on 30th November in Tallinn.
In a post-match interview to soccernet.ee, Kalev’s Smirnov said:
Viimsi didn’t surprise us. It is known that they go on emotion and the fans are behind them, especially at home. That’s what we were rather afraid of. It was difficult for us, somehow we wanted to rush too much and we panicked after that.
Viimsi defender Martin Jälle remains hopeful ahead of the return leg:
A draw is a very good result to face the second game. Everything is open. Let’s go there with the same mentality that we want to make history in the Premium liiga and for Viimsi football!