Some teams do not have the quality to be competitive in the UEFA Champions League, but they are nevertheless fun to include due to the occasional upsets they can cause in the tournament. There is no doubt that FC Nordsjaelland, the 2012 Danish championship side, is one of these sides. In their first two matches they lost 2-0 and 0-4 to Shakhtar Donetsk and Chelsea respectively, although nice and polite things have been said about their style. Today at home against Juventus they were looking for their first goal.
I watched the match on ESPN, where the Latin American commentators spend around 10 minutes talking about the great Michael Laudrup, whose son Andreas plays for FC Nordsjaelland. But as the game progressed they had only admiring words to say about the dedication of the tenacity of the Danes against the Italians. Some five minutes into the second half Mikkel Beckmann scored the first CL goal for the Danes on a splendidly taken free kick, and then the match became more fun as everyone was expecting one of the occasional upsets in the CL. Although goalkeeper Jesper Hansen had some amazing saves against the Italians, Mirko Vucinic in the end managed to equalize for the Italians.
The match ended 1-1, and FC Nordsjaelland may be a bit disappointed, but truth is that Juventus remains a far better team than the Danes, who have now made a little upset against the Italian champions. Pretty cool for some little guys, but that is also what it will remain.
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