F.C. Copenhagen U19s win Danish Championship

F.C. Copenhagen's U19 team secured the Danish championship on Saturday afternoon after defeating FC Midtjylland 5-1 at Number 10.

The team has known for several weeks that nothing but a perfect record this spring would secure the title.

Head coach Sune Holmgren said of this success: "I slept like a baby last night, and I had a good feeling in my stomach before the game. Of course, things were a bit shaky in the last quarter before the break, when they scored, and they also started the second half with a great chance."

"But no one was stressed in the dressing room at half-time, even though it's not an easy situation to be in control of after we had played excellently for the first half-hour and then suddenly risked throwing it all away.

"But I really think the boys showed strong character by scoring three goals in ten minutes and closing out the match against a strong FCM team that was fighting with Silkeborg for third place. So I think that performance shows something about how far we have come.

32 out of 33 possible points
"There has been constant pressure to keep going and we achieved 32 out of 33 possible points in our last 11 matches. That shows that we have worked hard and peaked at the right time.

"It's great that we can now look forward to playing in the UEFA Youth League in the autumn. It was great to get a taste of it last autumn, when we were very, very close to advancing from the league phase, so these are matches with something at stake and we would like to have more of those.

"It means a lot for the players' development, and even though we had a very busy autumn, it may have helped that we can now stand here and celebrate a Danish championship."

Cup final awaits
The season is not quite over for the U19s, who on Wednesday 3 June face AB in the U19 cup final at Tingbjerg Idrætspark (7pm).

Here you can see some of the celebration photos during and after the match from our photographer Gaston Szerman: