It was the biggest match in FC Helsingør’s history, played on Sunday afternoon, and interest had been massive in Helsingør and the surrounding area. Nearly 5400 spectators broke the stadium record, and witnessed a match in which last season’s dominant champions from FC Copenhagen won 4-0 in a game that for long periods was more even than the scoreline suggests.
Helsingør got off to a good start, moving the ball around in fine combinations, and the FCK players barely touched the ball in the first five minutes. But then Jan Gregus got the ball in midfield and played Sotiriou through in the Helsingør area, and the expensive striker did not fail.
1-0 FC Copenhagen
FC Helsingør did not give up, however, and just a few minutes later Ricki Olsen found Anders Holst making a forward run. Holst dribbled past two men, but completely free he was unlucky to skew his shot, and the ball went harmlessly wide.
After 18 minutes, FC Copenhagen struck again. A mistake in the back pass suddenly played Pavlovic completely free, and alone with Mikkel Bruhn the Serbian calmly put the ball in.
2-0 FC Copenhagen.
FCH played the ball around well for long periods, but had trouble truly becoming dangerous against a strong FCK defense. And after half an hour it went wrong again. In an aerial duel, Martin Fisch did not quite get high enough to the ball, which was deflected backward instead of being headed away, and Pavlovic could then set off on a free counterattack and lashed the ball high and hard into the net past Mikkel Bruhn once again.
3-0 FC Copenhagen
Christian Lønstrup reacted to the third goal by bringing on Nicolas Mortensen instead of Frederik Bay, and just before the halftime whistle a well-playing Adnan Mohammed set up the substitute striker for a big chance, but unfortunately his good shot went just over.
In the second half, the Helsingør players came out a little shaken after the break, but worked their way back into the match, and it was a somewhat better-played half from the home side than the first. New signing Patrick Olsen made his debut and showed several examples of his good ball control and football intelligence. But several good long-range efforts from Osama Akharraz and Ricki Olsen went just over or wide of the FCK goal, and FCH failed to capitalize on the chances they created.
So FCK could ease off the accelerator a bit, and were primarily dangerous on the counterattack. Among other things, Rasmus Falk had a dangerous shot, which Mikkel Bruhn, however, saved brilliantly.
Nicolas Mortensen played a good game, and after 72 minutes he was brought down in the box in a situation where the home fans would have liked a penalty, but referee Peter Kjaersgaard’s whistle remained silent.
The FCH players fought to get the reducing goal, but time and again the attempts ran into FCK’s blocks. So it was not entirely fair that it was FC Copenhagen who scored the match’s final goal in the 83th minute. Sotiriou got his feet to a ball just inside the box and sent a fine long-range effort into the far corner beyond Bruhn’s reach.
4-0 FC Copenhagen
After that, the FCK players could just let the clock run out, and a long-range shot from Osama Akharraz was as close as Helsingør came to reducing the deficit, before the 5308 spectators who had witnessed the match could hear the referee’s whistle for the last time and applaud the players off after a respectable effort that nevertheless ended in a defeat that could well have been a couple of goals smaller.
FC Helsingør: Bruhn, Bay, Fisch, Holm, Basse, Holst, Olsen, ”TK” Köhler, Akharraz, Mohammad, Henriksen.
Substitutes: N. Mortensen, Patrick Olsen
Photo: Claus Birch, clausbirch.dk
