FCK Weekly News: 20th – 26th September
The week got off to a bad start for FCK, with the revelation that central defender and captain Sölvi Ottesen had suffered a fracture to his forearm after the club’s 2-0 victory over Brøndby IF. The Icelandic international is expected to be out of action for five to six weeks.
by Joe Short
The news did not dispel team confidence on Wednesday however, as coach Ståle Solbakken changed the majority of his squad round for Copenhagen’s trip to Viby IF in the Ekstra Bladet Cup. The game was generally dominated by the Lions, but it was Viby who took the lead early on, after Troels Meldgaard slipped in between the FCK centre backs to slot home nicely.
However, it took FCK just ten minutes to respond: Martin Vingaard with a beautiful low drive from the edge of the area to level the scores. A brace from Søren Frederiksen gave Copenhagen a 3-1 cushion at half time, while an own goal from Jacob Serwin in the second half confirmed the victory for the away side.
After the game, Solbakken described his pleasure at the success of his team selection:
- I was reasonably confident that they (Viby) would make a good opponent, and we did what we had to do. We got some young boys who have done well in reserve and U19 team to play. The only drawback in the game was that we didn’t take enough of our chances, although we did score some fine goals, especially Søren Frederiksen's first, which was really, really good.
Player confidence
On Thursday’s edition of the Lion Hour podcast, Mathais Zanka discussed Wednesday’s result and performance, as well as anticipating the match ahead against FC Midtjylland, especially forward Frank Kristensen:
- It was good to get a couple of young boys into battle, they played well; especially Morten Thomsen was unlucky not to get on the score sheet. We are favorites on Saturday. I expect that we will impose ourselves upon the match and we're going to have the ball most. They will try to counter attack. Frank Kristensen is obviously a man we must keep our eye on, but it's not something we are doing something particular about. I certainly expect us to win.
And indeed Zanka was right to be confident, as FCK went on to beat Midtjylland 3-0 in a fairly one-sided affair. From the start Copenhagen looked the more energetic team, and took the lead on 11 minutes from Zdenek Pospech. The right back advanced unnoticed to the edge of the FCM box, where Jesper Grønkjaer’s layoff set him up nicely to smash the ball above the Midtjylland goalkeeper into the roof of the net.
Claudemir scores his first for FCK
Copenhagen doubled their lead after more good work down the right hand side. This time Pospech was the architect, cutting the ball back from deep to Claudemir, whose deflected shot beat the keeper to make it 2-0, his first goal for the club.
A third goal was added with a quarter of the match still remaining, which effectively ended the game there and then. Christian Bolaños delivered an inch-perfect cross to Dame N’Doye, who was unmarked in the box and easily able to head home for 3-0.
Ståle delighted with team consistency
Solbakken again seemed happy with the performance and result, as Copenhagen get back into their winning habit after their 2-2 draw with Silkeborg a fortnight ago:
- I think we manage to play at a consistent high level week after week, and if we can continue the streak we will be hard to beat. There'll come times of crisis, but so far we've got enough extra energy for the European matches. We had the knife at our throats against BATE Borisov and Rosenborg but we made it through.
- This means that the mental strength has always been with us. We have done with all the difficult hurdles such as Rubin Kazan, and so it is easier to deal with some adversity during the games now.
This being said, Copenhagen face tough opposition this coming week, with the team’s trip to Athens for round two of their UEFA Champions League campaign on Wednesday. A win at Panathinaikos would make good reading for Group D, with FCK on six points from a possible six, to propel them through the rest of the fixtures.
