BK Olympic from Malmö was the opponent in the last training match of the winter start, which was played on artificial turf at Skovdiget. In relation to the match against Österlen FF, Hørdur Askham replaced Daniel A. Pedersen in central defence.
Daniel A. Pedersen was not available for the match, and Darren Sidoel had been given the captain’s armband. Otherwise, the starting line-up was the same as last time with Tim Freriks on the wing and Ahmed Hassan on top.
Today’s starting line-up:
16 Albert Gaub-Jacobsen (goalkeeper)
3 Erik Lindell
4 Adrien Koudelka
5 Rasmus Brodersen
8 Darren Sidoel
10 Tim Freriks
17 Yushi Yamaya
22 Ágúst Hlynsson
24 Mark Garly Pedersen
40 Hard Askham
97 Ahmed Hassan
AB starts with a good pressure high on the field, and already after a few minutes, Mark Garly Pedersen pressures BK Olympic’s goalkeeper to fail. AB plays at a high pace and sits on the game. AB has several good plays, where the ball is played quickly from player to player, and often it ended with a finish.
Quick combinations between Rasmus Brodersen and Yushi Yamaya put Tim Fredriks in the role of the finisher, but the ball ended up over the goal. In midfield, Mark Garly Pedersen and Agust Hlynsson dominated with a lot of work. AB is putting more and more on the game with more good crosses and also close to scoring. BK Olympic played well together and was waiting for a change. The best conversion came after the 30th minute, where quick passes and a good finish could have resulted in a score, but Albert Gaub-Jacobsen pulled out a great save. Shortly after, Hørdur Askham makes a long pass to Rasmus Brodersen, who plays Yushi Yamaya, who is fouled a few meters outside the penalty area. Ahmed Hassan shoots a hard shot over the wall, but also over the goal. Half-time score 0-0.
Shortly into the 2nd half, BK Olympic has a great chance close to goal, but Albert Gaub-Jacobsen is again ready with a great save. Barely 5 minutes after and after a good run into the box, Yushi Yamaya passes from a short distance to Tim Freriks, who scores to make it 1-0. There were several chances for AB. Erik Lindell took the chance with a good shot from outside the box, but past the goal. Mark Garly Pedersen plays 1-2 with Darren Sidoel, but Mark Garly Pedersen’s finish is cleared by BK Olympic’s goalkeeper.
Ahmed Hassan goes out and Flamur Dzelili comes on the field. Shortly after, Rasmus Brodersen leaves and is replaced by Julius Lind. In the latter part of the match, Christian Wagner, Søren Ilsøe and Emiliano Gomez come on the field.
AB’s No. 22 Ágúst Hlynsson said these words after the game: “It was a good game, we played really well and got a lot of good chances. They created almost nothing, so overall it was a very positive game. We have trained really hard the last few weeks, so I can feel it in my legs after the game today. We are in good shape, so we will all be healthy again for Sunday. It will be really nice to get started and play for points again.”
After the game, head coach David Roufpanah said: “We got a win today and we are happy about that. We really have a good feeling here after the game, because there were so many good frequencies in the game. Of course, there is always something you can develop and do better. But a really good feeling of an intensive match with good energy and good communication. We create goal chances and probably have to make more than one goal. We played good football, so we can go into the coming week and prepare for the start of the season next Sunday with a good feeling. I said in advance that we would use the match to focus on the defence and on how we will defend in different sequences of the match. I think we are doing this very well. So all in all, a good last training match against a good BK Olympic team with many young talents. They play really good passing football. I’ve seen one of their previous games, so it didn’t surprise us that they’re good at it. They had a hard time today, because we are so good in our pressing game, we are good in the middle block, we are good in our low defense and we work hard. So we are satisfied”.
The next match is the season opener against Esbjerg fB at Blue Water Arena on Sunday 10 March at 14.00.
