Road Trip #2 (2022): Lyngby, Nordsjælland And The Copenhagen Derby
If you’ve been a regular reader of this site you will know my passion for Danish football occupies a disproportionate amount of my headspace. So naturally my summer was spent largely hammering the refresh key on the Superliga website waiting for the fixtures to be released in order to get planning this year’s trip.
As luck would have it Round 4 featured the first Copenhagen derby of the season, a match I’d been desperate to see in person, with my enthusiasm only ratcheted up by speaking to assorted luminaries for my piece on the iconic rivalry. But aside from this much heralded fixture, there were a number of other matches spread over the weekend that, with a little good fortune, would be scheduled kindly to allow for visits to multiple games across a three day period.
Lyngby v Midtjylland looked like the perfect way to kick-off proceedings. A newly promoted side at home on the Friday against last season’s silver medalists and cup winners making the trip over from Jylland. Saturday fixtures are few and far between in the Superliga, a consequence, I believe, of a desire to find a slot that doesn’t clash with the Premier League (although with the move to ‘Super Sundays’ I’m not sure this logic still carries much weight). So it was with great delight that owing to their European exploits, Viborg’s clash with FC Nordjælland in Farum moved to the Saturday, offering up the golden opportunity to take in three Superliga games in three days. For a Danish football aficionado this was the equivalent of hitting the jackpot.
Next I needed to recruit some friends to join me. Mark, a Spurs fan who had grown disillusioned with the direction of the Premier League was the first to snatch the opportunity for a weekend of football, beers and great food and he was joined by Tim, a Chelsea fan excited to experience a continental derby for the first time. Not only would this be a chance for us to hang out together but to put aside our English club rivalries and enjoy football together for a change!
In the months leading up to the trip we joked that it was inevitable that given how excited we were for the trip, one of us was bound to get sick just before and end up missing out. Why I mention this will become apparent shortly.
The Friday of the trip arrived and while Tim and I were up at the crack of dawn to take a train to the airport, Mark messaged to say he had spent the night with a massive fever. We persuaded him that these things rarely last long so come to Copenhagen, get some rest in the hotel and he’ll be feeling better by the next day. He took our advice and we headed to Denmark full of excitement for the days ahead.
On arrival we loaded up on smørrebrød and coffee and with Mark feeling brighter we jumped on the S-train for the very short journey to our first game of the weekend.
Situated just north of Copenhagen, Kongens (King’s) Lyngby is home to Lyngby BK, twice Danish champions and back in the Superliga again after spending last season in the 1st Division. Dan, an English guy living and working in Copenhagen, met us at the station and accompanied us to the stadium, where he has been a regular since arriving in Denmark several years ago and falling in love with the club. As a Watford fan, he feels a real affinity to the underdog spirit of Lyngby. The stadium is a 20 minute walk or so from the station and the route took us through a pleasant residential area before opening up into the expansive tree lined stadium complex.
The tree-lined Lyngby Stadion
Midtjylland’s smartly branded coach with blacked out windows pulled into the stadium just ahead of us, a reminder that this was one of the Superliga’s powerhouse teams, having been title contenders for the best part of the past decade. We headed round the side of the stadium to the supporters bar, a small metal building sandwiched between the stadium and the manicured training pitches that cover the area north of the stadium, where Peter from the Lyngby Supporters Club was pouring beers. With the stadium filling up and the sun shining, it felt great to have finally made it to a Superliga match this season and be in the company of friends with the whole weekend ahead of us. Before heading in we were met by Lars Rønbøg, the Superliga’s most prolific photographer who I interviewed for a piece earlier in the summer and who I would see at all three games over the weekend.
We scanned our tickets and headed in to the stadium. The area behind the goal is unlike anything I’ve seen at a game before. A fan zone of sorts, with drinks stands, a bouncy castle for kids, tables and of course a gigantic grill where hundreds of pølser (sausages) were being grilled. I’ve lost count of the number of people who told me ahead of this trip how legendary the Lyngby pølse was - the best in the country apparently. Since I don’t eat meat, Tim volunteered to be the taste tester and emerged from the experience in full agreement with the hype. It was a special atmosphere, with over 5,000 fans in attendance despite the August matches often suffering from lower ticket sales due to intrusion on summer holidays. With kick-off looming we grabbed some beers, only to discover we were unable to pay for them without the MobilePay app. Whether a sign of Dane’s good nature or the community feeling of Lyngby, or indeed both, we were trusted to take the beers and pay later at another booth that accepted cards. Having attended hundreds of matches in the Premier League I can assure you this level of trust is not extended to fans the other side of the North Sea, where even drinking in view of the pitch is prohibited.
The fanzone at Lyngby - an integral part of the stadium experience
We took our seats in the middle of the main stand, just in front of a bank of desks populated by guys in Midtjylland tracksuits sat behind MacBooks. I suspected this was likely part of Midtjylland’s famed data analytics team who have made a name for themselves by using numbers and statistics to find an edge, whether in the transfer market or on set pieces.
The view from the main stand just ahead of kick-off
The game started and Midtjylland came out of the blocks with an unrelenting energy. They had suffered a heavy defeat in midweek to Benfica in a Champions League qualifier but didn’t look to have any heavy legs as their dangerous wingers Gustav Isaksen and Anders Dreyer buzzed about causing mayhem. It was a matter of minutes before a clever cutback was met by the big number 9 Sory Kaba who buried the ball from close range to give the visitors an early lead. Shortly after a delicious outside of the boot through ball by Dalsgaard found the perfectly timed run of Dhyr who slotted home with the coolness of a seasoned striker to double Midtjylland’s advantage. Lyngby looked shell-shocked and were struggling to impose themselves on the game. Midtjylland continued to push and when Dreyer jinked past his marker on the edge of the box and fired a ferocious shot towards the near post, it felt inevitable that the ball would hit the back of the net. Ibsen dived but couldn’t stop it and Dreyer wheeled away, his brilliant start to the season continuing as the scoreboard changed to reflect FCM’s 3-0 lead. At this point it looked like the game could get ugly for Lyngby who, in their opening 3 games of the season had put in solid performances but with only a point to show for their endeavours.
Just before the break Lyngby captain Marcel Rømer received the ball on the right just outside the area and bent in a cross, met superbly by Emil Nielsen, whose elegant header arched over Elias Oloffsen’s despairing dive and into the far side of the goal. A wonderful goal and a confidence booster for the hosts just ahead of the half-time break.
Whatever Lyngby coach Freyr Alexandersson said at half time clearly had the intended effect. Lyngby came out for the second half and looked revitalised, full of confidence and energy, and when the referee awarded a penalty on the 61st minute after a VAR review, 6ft7 striker Mathias Kristensen slotted home from the spot to put Lyngby within reach of an unlikely point. The atmosphere inside the ground built and on the 86th minute a throw in floated into the box found its way through to Sævar Magnùsson, whose beautifully struck acrobatic shot rocketed into the top corner and sent the crowd into wild jubilation. A late Magnus Kaastrup shot swerved and was tipped onto the bar. On another day it may have snuck in and handed Lyngby all 3 points but as the full time whistle blew the reaction of the players confirmed that this was very much a point won by Lyngby and 2 dropped by Midtjylland, whose poor start to the season continues. There aren’t many teams who will score 3 against this Midtjylland team in the league this season, and I would wager there will be none who manage it again from 3-0 down. You certainly can’t question Lyngby’s heart.
Jubilation amongst Lyngby fans as the equaliser goes in to earn them an important point
At full-time I headed straight to the players’ tunnel, situated behind the goal rather than attached to one of the main stands, to meet kitman and Lyngby local legend Henrik ‘Lux’ Sørensen. Having spoken over the summer for a Behind The Scenes piece I was writing we had arranged a football shirt swap after the game and as the players walked off down the tunnel, Lux grabbed us to join him in the kit room, next to the home dressing room below the stadium. I pulled out one of my prized Arsenal shirts and Lux presented me with this season’s Lyngby shirt, a fantastic memento of a memorable match. As we chatted, Andreas Bjelland popped in and I congratulated him on a hard fought draw. As a former FC København player with more than 100 caps for the club I couldn’t resist asking him about playing in a Copenhagen derby. His recollections only added to our already fever-pitch level of excitement for Sunday’s clash. We bid a fond farewell to Lux before meeting up with Dan to head back to the station. We made it back to our hotel, buzzing from a fantastic first game of the weekend, but in desperate need of recharging our batteries before going again the next day.
It’s not just the players who swap shirts! A great post-match moment with Lux Sørensen
The next day I woke up for breakfast but Mark was nowhere to be seen. His fever had returned and he’d been up all night sweating. As he was feeling increasingly unwell we suggested he rest at the hotel, take paracetamol and drink plenty of water in the hope of feeling well enough to come for dinner that evening.
With Tim meeting friends in the city, I headed to Farum alone for FC Nordsjælland v Viborg. Both teams had started the season in good form and playing some very attractive football in the process. Nordsjælland are a club I have long admired since falling in love with Danish football. The story of the Right To Dream academy link is well documented but as the only European side owned by an African academy they are a unique club, with a seemingly never ending stream of talent and a philosophy on and off the pitch that makes them feel like a refreshing antidote to the commercial focus of the Premier League. Given his disengagement with the latter I felt sure that Mark would have loved the experience of Nordsjælland had he not been bed-bound.
FC Nordsjælland’s Right To Dream Park
I arrived early and had been given press accreditation by Mette Andersen, FC Nordsjælland’s Head of Press & Communications, which gave me the opportunity to watch the game from the fantastic viewpoint of the press section, on the halfway line directly opposite the benches. On hearing an English accent as I chatted to Tom Sivert, FCN’s host for the day, Lars Rønbøg popped out of the press room to come and say hello. It was nice to see a familiar face and we chatted briefly about the fact the match had been delayed by 30 minutes due to a road accident delaying some of the Viborg supporters who had made the journey over from Jylland.
The teams prepare for kick-off ahead of Nordsjælland v Viborg
Kick-off eventually came and the match began at a frenetic pace, in part due to the new artificial surface that had been laid over the summer. Pre-match I had been caught unaware by the automated watering system which popped up to spray water on the surface (and me), only adding to the speed the ball travelled. Andreas Schjelderup would later tell me “[The surface] is better than the last one, but I’m still getting used to it. There is still a little too much of the [small green rubber bits] so the ball is kind of floating on the pitch a bit”.
And it was the prodigious Norwegian who opened the scoring midway through the first half, reacting quickly to a parry following a corner to fire home a low, smartly hit shot. He’s started the season in red-hot form and this was his 3rd goal in 4 games. It proved to be the only game of a tightly fought encounter that saw FC Nordsjælland go top of the league with the only remaining 100% record in the division. With Simon Adingra having departed for Brighton after his breakout season in 2021-22, many wondered who would replace him in the FCN starting lineup. The answer looks to be Ernest Nuamah, who showed flashes of his brilliance in the opening half, first weaving through the Viborg defence and squaring it nicely in a move that should have resulted in a goal, before producing a fantastic shot from distance that only was tipped over for a corner. Jay-Roy Grot came closest for the visitors, with good work from the big Dutchman to get into two decent scoring positions only to fluff his lines at the last minute.
But it was Schjedlerup who shone brightest, offering his usual mixture of creativity, energy and dynamism to power FC Nordsjælland to victory. After the game I had access to the mixed zone where I managed to get some time with him to talk. From the secret to this season’s hot streak, “the team got to know each other much more personally now, how each other plays and so it’s easy for us to go on the pitch and perform,” to how he’s enjoying the more central role he played on the day - starting in more of an attacking midfield role than on the left wing, “I prefer to play as a midfielder in the left half-space, I feel I can do a lot more there than in the false 9…I grew up as a Liverpool fan and watching Coutinho in that role really inspired me.” Our chat finished with a word about his ambitions to join the likes of Haaland and Ødegaard in the Norway team, “that’s what I hope for and work hard for every day. There’s so many great players coming up right now that I think the next few years are going to be bright for Norway.”
A humble, determined lad with a fantastic attitude, Andreas was a pleasure to talk to and a credit to his club. Before the season I featured him in my 10 To Watch list and I fully believe he’ll go right to the very top.
I left the mixed zone and walked back across the pitch to the exit, stopping briefly on the centre circle to take in a view of the pitch usually out of bounds for mere mortals like me.
A view from the centre circle at Right To Dream Park as the teams warm down
I made it back to Copenhagen and met the guys for a drink before dinner and discovered that although a very slight improvement in his temperature, Mark was now walking with a limp. He rolled up his trouser leg to reveal a very sore looking leg, with a red rash and blisters up the entirety of his calf. He had an insect bite there a few weeks ago and had itched it but thought nothing of it. Googling symptoms always results in the worst possible outcomes so when his phone threw up the possibility that he had cellulitis, a potentially lethal infection that spreads rapidly through the body from a cut, we advised he got it checked out at a pharmacy. Mark seemed strangely calm about it so we headed out to dinner.
By the end of the meal Mark could barely walk so we found a 24hr pharmacy and headed there for help. Fast-forward a few hours and Mark was now at hospital being told his infection levels had maxed out and he needed treatment urgently. This was certainly not in the plan. He returned to his hotel room with a ton of super-strength medication, while the pain in his leg continued to worsen.
Morning arrived and it was derby day. In football terms, Mark hadn’t even made the late fitness test. He was completely incapacitated and so the plan to reel him in to the world of Danish football with the biggest fixture in the calendar was put on ice. I left a ticket with him in the hope that he would recover the strength to make it and headed out towards Parken stadium with Tim, as heavy rain began to fall.
With only summer jackets we hoped it would pass or this would end up being an unexpectedly cold, wet afternoon. Fortunately it did as we met Asger, an FC København fan I met earlier this year who generously invited us for some pre-match beers and straight-from-the-freezer aquavit with his group of friends. For a couple of foreigners attending our first derby it was an amazing experience to spend some time around a kitchen table with lifelong FCK supporters, right by the stadium before one of their biggest games of the season.
After leaving Asger and co we headed for the newly created fan zone at Parken, a collection of food and drink stands behind the Sektion 12 stand, where we met up with Pablo, an FCK supporter since the club’s inception in 1992, for a final round of refreshments before the main event. As we chatted to fans about to head into the stadium, the mood around us was excited but tinged with the usual nerves that come with a derby game. The lineups revealed Mo Daramy, sold to Ajax for a club record fee last summer, would start just days after returning on loan for the season. A shot in the arm for an FCK team that had only won once in their opening three matches.
We headed in to find our seats in the A Stand’s lower tier. Tickets here offer one of the best views in the stadium - close to the action, with a perfect view of the much anticipated choreography and near enough to feel the atmosphere of the always-noisy Sektion 12. The trade-off is that it tends to be far quieter than the C Stand opposite, the lower section of which (Nedre C) is home of some of the most ardent supporters in the stadium.
Pre-match the atmosphere is electric in Sektion 12
Even an hour before kick-off the stadium was close to full and we waited eagerly for the unveiling of the tifo which we had been told before would be the biggest and most elaborate for the past 6 years. As the players disappeared off down the tunnel after the warmups, the first part of the tifo was unveiled, a scene the length of the stand depicting the Olsen Banden, a gang of robbers that feature in a series of much loved Danish comedy films. At the bottom of the banner was a train track running along the entire tifo leading to a Brøndby safe, containing the league trophy. The train made its way down the track before the safe was cracked and the gang emerged in a second tifo holding the trophy aloft as blue and white smoke and flags fill the stand, a reference to the fact that FCK had ‘reclaimed’ the trophy in 2021-22 after Brøndby had won it in 2020-21.
Part 1 of the elaborate Olsen Banden themed tifo
Part 2, with the Olsen Banden holding the league trophy
An incredibly impressive, elaborate tifo fit for a derby. Meanwhile the Brøndby fans made themselves heard too, setting off their own flares and waving flags to form a wall of yellow and blue behind their goal. A cauldron-like atmosphere was brewing before kick-off and it didn’t let up much over the entire 90 minutes.
Brøndby fans in full voice turn the away stand yellow & blue before kick-off
On the pitch the game started with the usual intensity you’d expect from a derby. Daramy’s quality on the left was instantly evident and after 13 minutes the opening goal came, the ball dropping to FCK talisman Rasmus Falk who fired in a shot from the edge of the box that squirmed past Brøndby keeper Mads Hermansen.
Minutes later Brøndby were level. A wonderful driven effort by the American midfielder Christian Cappis evaded Kalle Johnson at the near post and just like that it was all square.
Kevin Diks looked at his dynamic best on the right and it was his superb control and run that ultimately set up the next goal, laying on a shot for Haraldsson which was parried into the path of Pep Biel who dived bravely for a header to put the hosts ahead.
Just before half time it was Pep Biel again, getting on the end of a driven Denis Vavro cross, that extended FCK’s lead. The diminutive Spaniard was arguably the Superliga player of the season in 2021-22, consistently showing his quality in the biggest games. He managed 4 goals in 4 derby games last season and this year has showed no sign of slowing down, completing a perfect hatrick (left foot, right foot & header) in the second half of the game, with his signature smart movement getting him in the perfect position to finish from close range and putting the game well and truly to bed.
FC København’s Viktor Claesson competes for an aerial ball with Brøndby’s Anis Ben Slimane
After some lacklustre performances this season, this was FC København back at their best - ruthless going forward and giving little away at the back, with the Georgian giant Davit Khocholava deputising for Nicolai Boilesen and putting in a superb defensive display in the process.
The full time whistle went and Sektion 12 was bouncing in unison as the players came over to show their appreciation. We headed out of the stadium and met Alex, a fellow Brit who lives and works in Copenhagen, as we navigated several sets of onrushing policemen and women on the way to find a bar to reflect on the afternoon’s action.
FC København players come over to celebrate with the fans after a derby victory
I’m conscious that as a lover of Danish football I might be biased but I asked Tim to reflect on his first derby experience and his enthusiasm was palpable. “The game was exceptional and more than matched the intensity of the atmosphere. Some of the chants are going to be stuck in my head for days I can tell!”
As first derbies go, it was an amazing one to choose, with five goals, a sold out crowd, iconic tifo and raucous atmosphere, it capped a weekend of football that could only have been bettered had Mark been able to venture out of his hotel room to join us for it.
The next day Mark was now largely immobile and so we headed to the airport in search of a wheelchair. The staff at Copenhagen airport could not have been more helpful, organising various methods of transport from motorised cars, to wheelchairs to an electric stairlift that elevated us right to the door of the plane. We made it back to London and I assured Mark that we would be back, without life threatening leg infections, for him to have the experience he’d been so looking forward to.
It may not have been exactly the weekend we had planned, but from a football perspective I was blessed with three fantastic matches, featuring 12 goals, a red card and so many friendly faces who helped make the trip one I’ll remember for a long time. If you were one of those people I can only thank you for making it so!
Denmark, you were wonderful as always. I’ll be back!
