Every day, tens of thousands of people are thought to commute across the 8km bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen. The name of the bridge – Öresund if you’re Swedish or Øresund if you’re Danish – is one of only a few things that divide the people of the two cities. Another one is football.
After Malmö beat Latvia’s RFS in a Champions League qualifier last week their winger Jens Stryger Larsen, who has more than 50 Denmark caps, led the club’s supporters in a vociferous chorus of “We hate Copenhagen” – the identity of their third-round opponents no secret, the draw already made.
Stryger Larsen came through the ranks at Brøndby – FC Copenhagen’s fierce rivals – and is one of a couple of Danish players in the Malmö squad. His chanting was criticised by Danish police, who said it was “helping to stir up a hostile atmosphere” before the two-leg tie gets under way in Sweden on Tuesday.
It will be an easy trip to the Eleda Stadion for Copenhagen’s travelling support: less than an hour by road or rail. Revellers are known to make the short hop to enjoy a cheaper night out in the industrial Swedish city than they can get in Denmark’s more regal capital. “Malmö is always going to be the little brother, city-wise,” says Agnes Gertten, who has commuted to Copenhagen for work in the past, of the Malmö fan association Supporterhuset.
Despite the friendly relationship shared by Malmö and Copenhagen as cities, there is rivalry between MFF and FCK, felt more strongly from the Malmö side. Although the clubs play each other only occasionally – there have been two competitive meetings in the past two decades – that animosity stems from a Royal League encounter in 2005, when Danish police were accused of attacking away supporters in the stands after little provocation.
The blame game was played and a three-year court case followed, with no individuals prosecuted. The teams’ first competitive meeting at Parken since then was in the Europa League in 2019, which the visitors won 1-0 to top their group. “For me, it was very emotional,” says Gertten, who will attend both legs over the next week. “We had just lost a friend earlier that year … he really hated Copenhagen. I cried like a baby. I think it was a feeling of being the greatest.”
Scandinavian pride is at stake here. Bodø/Glimt’s recent rise has brought a new element, but MFF and FCK have spent much of this century as the region’s top dogs and vehicles for the Sweden-Denmark pan-sporting grudge. “We are the most successful club over here,” says William Galambos of MFF Support, “and they are the most successful club in Denmark. Both clubs are used to winning and want to be the best in Scandinavia.”
Malmö and Copenhagen, winners of six of the…
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