FC Helsingør beat the Bosnian Mladost Doboj on Saturday afternoon in the final test match before the Alka Superliga kicks off for the Helsingør side on 11 February.
It was actually supposed to be against Serbian Spartak Subotica, but they very much wanted to move the match to the morning, and the FCH staff were not quite on board with that. Instead, Mladost Doboj from the top Bosnian league lined up for what turned out to be a fine final training match for FCH.
The first half was characterized by both teams standing strong defensively, and there was not much to speak of in terms of big chances in the first quarter of an hour. The exception was when Mladost’s goalkeeper collected a back pass, and the referee blew for a free kick in the box. Rarely seen in a training match, though. Tobias Christensen could not get the shot through the wall, and so FC Helsingør had to wait until just around 20 minutes had been played before breaking the deadlock. The ball was played forward by Matheus, who beat two or three men, and Mladost’s goalkeeper could not hold his shot. Nicolas Mortensen then got to the ball, and from a tight angle he smashed it into the net.
1-0 FC Helsingør.
Not long after, Tobias Christensen took a good corner kick. Pascal Gregor had moved forward, and headed the ball strongly into the net. The FC Helsingør players celebrated, but the referee inexplicably blew for a foul and disallowed the goal. A rather harsh fate for a good set piece.
After the break, both teams made several changes, and the rhythm was broken up a bit, as often happens in training matches. Douglas came close once, and the Bosnians also broke forward on a couple of counterattacks, but otherwise the half was mostly characterized by hard duels and free kicks that may have been just over the line of what one expects in a training match. FC Helsingør’s new Brazilian, Felipe Tontini, made his debut and showed glimpses of his good ball control and accurate passing, but neither team really got close to anything major, and FC Helsingør could therefore close the training camp with a deserved victory over a defensively strong team, and begin looking ahead to the season opener next week.
FC Helsingør: Vaporakis: Fisch, S. Henriksen Gregor, Matheus, Basse, Köhler, Bay, Christensen, Mortensen, Douglas
Substitutes: Kappenberger, Mohammad, P. Olsen, Tontini, Holst, Stückler, Frithzell
