FCH brought defender Mikkel Knudsen to the club earlier in August, and yesterday he returned to his old home ground at Monjasa Park and played the full 90 minutes.
Today we talked with Mikkel about his thoughts and reflections on yesterday’s match.
How does it feel to return to your former club FC Fredericia?
It is always special when you have to meet your old teammates. It wasn’t that long ago that I changed clubs, so it feels great. It was a great match and nice to see and greet the other guys again, and it is always nice to leave with bragging rights. There were many people in the stands and a good atmosphere, and fortunately we managed to shut down a bit of their celebration and put a bit of a lid on it so it couldn’t become completely euphoric for them. So it was nice and an important victory.
How did you see the team’s performance yesterday and what was said in the dressing room at halftime?
Overall, I think it was a good performance, a close match. They get off to the better start, and they take control of the match and have the initiative, but that is also part of our tactic, that we want to stand a little further back on the pitch, but they get too much time on the ball to play it around too much for us to really shut them down. I think they miss some big chances, and we do too in the first half. So we were really happy to go into halftime with 0-0, and talked about not becoming too negative and not thinking too much about their big chances, so we could start from zero in the second half and go out and assert ourselves a bit more, do things our way and tip the momentum over to us, and I think we managed that really well. We have quality in the decisive situations, which means we score 4 goals, and goals change football matches. When we go to 1-1 and after 1-2, we can feel at Fredericia that they fall apart. If you look at the whole match, I think it was a good performance, a top match and a very even game where we managed to turn the momentum over to our side.
How was it to win against your former club?
It was fantastic. It is always nice to have bragging rights, and especially when it is a direct competitor at the top right now, so it is nice to have opened up a 3 point gap to them.
Could you feel the nerves?
I don’t think I could feel it. It was more when I was a bit younger that you could let it affect you a bit, but now I have tried it a couple of times when I switched from Fredericia to Viborg, I also had to meet my old teammates, so I think I have found a good balance, where you should not think too much about it being a special match or about meeting your old teammates, but just let yourself go and treat it like any other match, and I think that worked well.
What are your expectations for the team’s season?
Our expectations are that we must be in the top for as long as at all possible. Now we have increased people’s and our surroundings’ expectations with the start we have had, but we are still very humble about it and keep both feet on the ground and take one thing at a time. There are still 24 matches left in the season, so it is a long season, but we will definitely be chasing a top finish for as long as at all possible and that is also our ambition and what we train for every day.
FC Helsingør won yesterday’s top clash against FC Fredericia and are now alone at the top of the NordicBet Liga.
The next match we host OB in the Sydbank Cup on 21 September at 17.45 at Helsingør Stadium.
