Frederiksen: - We learned a lot in PARKEN
On Thursday afternoon at 16:00 FC Copenhagen meet local rivals Lyngby BK, where the Lions could secure their 9th Danish championship should they win. Copenhagen are currently 23 points ahead of second place OB and, with only eight games of the season remaining, three points before Easter would be enough for the title.
by Joe Short
Yet it is all good and well to talk of winning the league, but Lyngby need to be defeated first, and that is no easy task. Lyngby seem to have moved up a gear recently, as their manager Niels Frederiksen points out to FCK.DK. They are moving in the right direction, and learned a lot from the first two meetings with Copenhagen this season.
What has gone well for Lyngby this season? And what has not gone quite so well?
- Overall we are very satisfied. Looking at the statements coming from many of the so-called experts, they all believed we would be relegated by this point, and we are far from it. We are not safe yet, but we are close to the line. Overall, we have delivered this season, and we are happy with our points total, so we can be proud of most of what we've achieved.
- We have also shown some good attacking football; we have scored a relatively large number of goals this season. We are not so pleased with the ability to shut down the defence. Although we are defensively better than when we were in the Superliga three years ago, I still think we concede too many.
Lyngby beat FC Midtjylland 1-0 on Thursday and then grabbed a late goal to draw 1-1 with Randers on Sunday. Are you now heading in the right direction?
- There are no guarantees in this world, but the arrow is pointing the right way. We kept a clean sheet against FC Midtjylland, but then left it relatively late against Randers. We've had some games where the luck hasn’t gone in our favour, but now it begins to turn our way and I think this is the beginning of something good.
What must you do on Thursday to succeed in earning one or even three points?
- There are many things needed to be successful, but we have met FCK twice this season, and we learned a lot the first time when we met in PARKEN. Here we stood too far back and tried to defend ourselves into a draw. The second time, when we pushed higher up, we moved the play further away from our own goal and I feel that when you meet FCK you should not hang back. We must be on our game; we must be aggressive in possession while we have the ball, because if FCK end up having the ball all the time, we can’t do anything.
How is your relationship to the famous ‘relegation line’?
- I don’t feel the pressure of it and we don’t think about it much. Although it is somewhat of a cliché, we focus on what we can influence, namely our own efforts. We can’t do anything about the outcome of other matches; we get points by earning them ourselves.
FC Copenhagen v Lyngby BK
The clubs have met 41 times. The Lions have been victorious on 20 of these occasions, 11 matches ended in a draw and Lyngby have won 10 times. During the 41 games Copenhagen have scored 77 goals while only conceding 45 from their opponents.
Lyngby have not defeated Copenhagen since 6 August 2000 where they won 2-1 in PARKEN: while we have to look back to 30 August 1999 to find Lyngby's latest triumph on their home soil. Then, they won 1-0 thanks to a Stefan Bidstrup goal.
Lyngby, however, were very close to beating FCK in October. The game was exceptionally close, and ended with a dramatic 3-2 victory for the Lions. Kenneth Zohore opened the scoring for Copenhagen on 13 minutes, becoming the Superliga’s second youngest scorer ever. Kim Aabech equalised later in the first half, and just four minutes before time Lasse Rise scored as Lyngby went ahead 2-1. But instead of celebrating three points a few minutes later, the Lyngby players could only stand and watch as first Morten Nordstrand equalised from a corner, before Sölvi Ottesen popped up at the back post to squeeze in the winning goal under two Lyngby players.
