Marked for Simon Damsgaard
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Feb 2036
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Copenhagen people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The dugout18 Feb 2036
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Copenhagen may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match18 Feb 2036
Position 3 and 42 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market18 Feb 2036
BK Hacken come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and FC Copenhagen did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market18 Feb 2036
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Victor Halvorsen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Copenhagen the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market18 Feb 2036
The interest is real enough to have reached print. FC Copenhagen have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Boardroom18 Feb 2036
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Simon Damsgaard has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad18 Feb 2036
Words at FC Copenhagen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álvaro Rodríguez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad18 Feb 2036
A move Román González would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Román González is living that version at FC Copenhagen, and it tends to show in the first month.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match16 Apr 2035
45 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market16 Apr 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Copenhagen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Apr 2035
Álvaro Rodríguez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Apr 2035
Words at FC Copenhagen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Mvuka is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout16 Apr 2035
Adrian Segecic has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at FC Copenhagen will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout16 Apr 2035
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout16 Apr 2035
Aske Andrésen knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aske Andrésen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market16 Apr 2035
The clock does Aske Andrésen’s negotiating for him
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee FC Copenhagen could ask drops and the wages Aske Andrésen can ask rise.
Market16 Apr 2035
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Benjamin Böckle’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad27 Nov 2034
A fracture rules Adrian Segecic out for 66 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Copenhagen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match27 Nov 2034
Position 2 and 35 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market27 Nov 2034
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at FC Copenhagen, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout27 Nov 2034
Simon Damsgaard: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Copenhagen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market27 Nov 2034
Rubén Cantero has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Copenhagen they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Nov 2034
Issaka Seidu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Copenhagen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Nov 2034
Joel Mvuka falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match25 Nov 2034
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation FC Copenhagen did not have in the autumn.