Neestrup: A fully-deserved victory
F.C. Copenhagen head coach Jacob Neestrup was all praise for his side after Tuesday's 5-0 win over Malmö FF secured safe passage to the UEFA Champions League play-off round.
Two goals from Robert Silva, a Rodrigo Huescas opener, and second-half strikes from Mohamed Elyounoussi and Magnus Mattsson secured the victory in Parken.
"It was a wonderful and fully-deserved win," said Neestrup afterwards.
"As I said to the players after the game, they showed great class and helped write history, because F.C. Copenhagen is built on memories, and in 20 years our fans will also remember this match, so it is another nice memory of our great history.
"In the first game in Malmö we delivered a controlled and very mature European performance, which gave us a good platform to finish the job tonight. And it must be said that we did, we played both offensively and defensively how we wanted.
“The players really had a blast, and I’m glad we could give our many fans that experience. As we talked about after the defeat against AGF on Friday, it was important to quickly put it behind us and move on, and it must be said that the players did that tonight and also got revenge for that match. We were even able to save a little energy during this tight schedule.
“Delaney had some problems yesterday and therefore didn’t play today, and we knew in advance that Achouri was also out, but I’m hugely impressed by the way Robert approached the match and brought a lot of energy and quality, both offensively and defensively. I think he already showed that in the first half on Friday, but it’s great to see how fantastic he was tonight."
FCK will face FC Basel home and away over the next couple of weeks in the play-off round, with a place in the Champions League at stake.
"So congratulations to the club and to Danish football that we are now certain of eight matches in the Europa League league phase at least, but of course we are going after the Champions League," added Neestrup.
"There are two close and exciting matches against Basel, which I have not studied in more detail myself yet, but of course our analysts have, so we are ahead of the curve. But now our attention is on Friday's away match in Farum, and then we can talk about Basel afterwards."