The news is out. After coming very close to leaving us already last season, this time we will really part ways with our best rider ever. He has been our highest scoring rider in every of the three seasons he was with us, but no longer fits in the plans of the new sponsors An overview of his legendary Los Pollos career is the goodbye he deserves.

I remember the day as if it was yesterday. Woke up on the tenth of September in 2021 and saw a leading bid of 300k on Matti Manninen. "Just because he had one good season in PCT they're willing to give him 300k, that's crazy for an 81 sprinter with the classic pcm sprint lottery.", I thought to myself. Two days later, somebody went 320k on him. In the meantime Los Pollos had secured the Zmorka and Spilak signings, and with second sprinter Maksimov on the way we figured it was worth the gamble. Our 400k bid on Manninen was the final one, as he was officially ours on September 13th, 22:23 Belgian time.

And the man started winning. His first race was the Tour Down Under. Stage 1? Check. Stage 2? Check. Green jersey? Check. Second in GC, even though the race was supposed to be for puncheurs? Check.




And he was still very hungry. First he won his home race, the C1 Hanko classic, and only a couple of days later he also won the PTHC classic Riga - Jurmala. PTHC really was his things, as stage wins in the Deutschland Tour and SAA Tour d'Afrique followed as well. He finished his LPH debut season with a staggering amount of 1068 points, leading to a third individual place and sending the team to PT after only two seasons of existing.

Whereas the team never really did superb in PT, one guy simply kept on rocking. Just like the year before, he came in with a bang. First stage in Qatar? Check. Fifth stage in Qatar? Check. GC win as well? Of course, check. Shortly after that he also performed amazing in San Remo and just kept on being consistent throughout the year.

But of course two of his most prestigious wins came in France. With some very tough competition in the Tour de France he still managed to grab two stage wins and just came short for the green jersey. Manninen finished his PT season with 1256 points, far outscoring riders on wages almost double as much as him.

Matti winning stage 8 in the 2022 TdF in the green jersey

And then came his final Mexican season, the 2023 PCT. He wanted to give his Mexican sponsors a season to remember, and boy he did. First of all he won the most important race for them, the Circulo de Juarez, with great consistency, a stage win and also the green jersey. Then followed a lot of stability, almost always finishing inside that top-5, and then he decided to really give back the money he had been receiving the past years. We had two PTHC sponsor top-5 goals in Deutschland and Ras Tailteann. So what did Matti do? Win a stage in both races and finish on the GC podium. Even in a race with a 27km time trial! What a legend.

Matti finished the season as best LPH scorer for the third year in a row, with his second individual pct podium in two seasons, and was thus a vital part of the promoting squad yet again. Not even keeping in mind the big amount of top-3 and top-5 finished, Matti has won 17 (!) races for us in the past seasons, and that on a wage of +-400k every time. The man, the myth, the Matti. The Flying Finn is ready to conquer the world of cycling again next year, sadly this time it won't be in our colours anymore.