Interview with Jeppe – coach of Football Women 11.1

After achieving the best result for the women’s 11-a-side ever: a 4th in Københavnerserien, we took a little chat with Jeppe Udklit Svendsen who’s been a coach of the women’s team for three years now.

How do you see this season overall?

With the end result being 4th, despite some disappointing results early on, I’m very satisfied with the season as a whole. We went into the season wanting to establish ourselves in Københavnsserien with a finish in the top half, and we did just that. We also must acknowledge that the 4th place finish is the highest yet for the club, and our 24 goals scored is the most since 2010.

What’s changed from previous seasons?

Well, apart from a bunch of new players in the squad who quickly proved their ability and established themselves within the starting lineup, a major positive from this season compared to previously has been our ability to win close games, and to keep playing for the full 90 minutes. We’ve also been able to win several matches played on grass, despite us historically having a hard time against more physical sides when facing them on a grass pitch. In general I see this as a significant change in mentality and the physicality of our team, and I’ve been very pleased with the way we’ve been able to stay competitive for the full 90 minutes even despite our opponents having more substitutes or some of our players having to play through injury.

Is this change due to modifications of your practice approach?

We introduced some new methods and focus areas in the pre-season but as with every fall we were limited by many of our players returning to practice shortly before the start of the season. We also quickly had to introduce new players within our squad after the try-outs in early September, and with the season underway at that time most of the time was spent preparing for the upcoming matches and dealing with a couple of unfortunate injuries along the way.

Practice attendance has been better than most previous seasons, considering our fairly small squad. There’s still a lot of room for improvement with regards to practice and attendance but I will say that some of it was heavily influenced by the many injuries and us having a pretty tight match programme. The level at practice has generally been higher than before though, and I expect it to keep improving.

Furthermore, this is by far the most talented squad we’ve ever had, and I look forward to the pre-season during which we’ll finally have time to work on the finer details of our play.

Besides working on the finer details of your play, what will pre-season and the spring season bring?

We’ll be looking to recruit a few players over the course of the winter specifically for the 1st team. We’ll be playing seven matches between late January and late March, and there are no player restrictions, meaning potential new players can play matches with us before deciding if they’d like to join the team. Furthermore we’re also on the lookout for a goalkeeper, as some goalkeeper competition would be a welcome addition to the squad.

Also, of course, our 2nd team is now leaving the 7-a-side tournament, to enter the 11-a-side Serie 2 in the spring season. I think the new 2nd team will go a long way in giving us extra space whilst providing an ecosystem that allows for even more depth in our squad and the club as a whole. The focus of the 2nd team will of course be to establish themselves first, but with a 5-2 win in their first ever game against FA2000 last week I expect they will be able to gain momentum quickly.