Cruel to the hopeful one

This weekend was full of hope. After watching the FA Cup final I went to the beach. El Tunco is a surf town with not so nice beach, but a good laid-back atmosphere and plenty of drinks, and I was in a good mood as I enjoyed watching people, reading and cold beers. In the evening I watched the final of the Salvadoran Championship, where my adopted Salvadoran side of Alianza destroyed Municipal Limeño 5-0 to take the Salvadoran title.

For me this was buildup for what I really wanted to celebrate: Brøndby taking the Danish League title! 

The Danish league has been awfully close, but with last day, all Brøndby had to do was win at home against AGF, and they would be champions. In the meantime, FC Midtjylland were playing their rivals of Silkeborg (recent winners of the Danish Cup), and had to win, and hope that Brøndby did not win.

I was perhaps too optimistic, but I felt that Brøndby could not lose this at home, with the support of the best fans in Denmark, and having played a great season.

9 AM I sat in a restaurant by the beach, ordered breakfast, and started watching the match live on the "OneFootball" app.

And it all started so well...

Brøndby went ahead 1-0 on a header by the defender Rasmus Lauritsen, and in the meantime Silkeborg went up 0-2 against FC Midtjylland. The title felt so close!

But then things started falling apart.

The same Rasmus Lauritsen missed a clearing and scored an own goal, making it 1-1, which was the score at halftime. "Ok", I thought optimistically, "FC Midtjylland losing, and second half to score a second, things cannot go wrong!".

But they did.

 Within 8 minutes of the second half, FC Midtjylland had scored 3 goals and were ahead 3-2. The title was now with them if Brøndby failed to score! We were all nervous as the unthinkable happened, and Tobias Bech brought AGF ahead 1-2, and suddenly the title was two goals away.

We were all hoping when Sebastian Sebulonsen equalised for Brøndby with 25 minutes left. 3-2 would give Brøndby the title, and we all pushed the team forward. 

But football is like life: cruel to the hopeful one. Instead of 3-2 for Brøndby, AGF scored a third by Patrick Mortensen. At this point I lost hope, but kept watching, and Brøndby received a penny of hope when Silkeborg equalised for 3-3 in Midtjylland. This meant that if Brøndby managed to get 3-3, they would be champions!

I never really believed in it, even though there were some chances. And as the match ended, thousands upon thousands of Brøndby fans all over the world had our hearts broken. 

What do you do when hope is destroyed? When darkness descends over your life, and you feel there is no way forward? 

There is no shame in crying and expressing your disappointment. Just remember to raise your head, be proud of your team, and look forward to the next season where we will again stand together behind the team!

Forza Brøndby!

And to console myself in this deep pain, I will have beer (gravøl), and make a steak on my bbq.

Good Brøndby victory

The last seasons have been quite disappointing for any fan of Brøndby. Living abroad much of the time I have only followed indirectly, but have been disappointed to see Brøndby defeated and far away from the Danish title, but entered this season full of perhaps vain hope. Until now, Brøndby has been wavering, much as many of the other teams in the Danish league, where the top seven teams are within five points of each other within the first ten rounds.
Last weekend Brøndby was destroyed 4-1 by one of the positive surprises of the Danish league this season, Silkeborg IF, who nevertheless should never be so much better than Brøndby.
Today Brøndby played FC Nordsjælland - not a top team but nevertheless with some very good players. I had a careful optimism and hope of a narrow victory, but was delighted to see an enterntaining match where Brøndby's strikers, who have been rather disappointing, finally struck: Morten Duncan Rasmussen scored four goals, and Brøndby carried away a victory of 6-3, giving hope again that the team may be strong enough to compete for the title.
Brøndby are now on third place, two points behind Esbjerg of first spot, and equal to FC Copenhagen.

Start of the Danish Superleague

The Danish Superliga started last weekend on its season 2009-10, and already there have been some interesting results: My favourite Brøndby is looking even more disappointing than last season after losing to Esbjerg and 2-2 against OB. The Odense team is supposedly one of the strongest teams this season, and have also started well with the tie against Brøndby and a victory against Sønderjyske. The defending champions of FC Copenhagen started out with a surprising loss away to FC Nordsjælland, but this week they showed that they are still favourties for the title by smashing the new superliga team from HB Køge by 7-1. Køge is already on the way down.
The other newcomers, Silkeborg IF started the league by 1-1 against HB Køge, but this week went to first spot by defeating FC Midtjylland 4-0 in a long-awaited local derby in central Jutland. Surely the ambitious FC Midtjylland must be in pain after such a thorough defeat!

Bad weekend

This could have been a great weekend! But no, my teams had to disappoint me.

The Spring season of the Danish Super-League started last week by Brøndby defeating league leaders FC Copenhagen 3-0. Thereby, the defending champions showed that they are still serious contenders to the title. But this weekend, Brøndby were facing the modest Jutland team from Silkeborg IF. Brøndby should win these kind of matches to be champions. Instead, they played a pathetic match and lost 2-0, and are again trailing Copenhagen.

It has always been a problem for Brøndby that the players think they are the best in the world when they win a big match, only to be outperformed by a small team in the next...

My other favourites from Valencia had a tuff away match against Racing Santander. Last week's tie with Real Madrid meant that Valencia had to have a win to keep up with Barcelona. But they lost 2-1, and the Championship is certainly gone now. Valencia is now even trailing Real Madrid on second spot by one point. I would hope that they would at least be able to regain the second spot, and get the direct qualification for next season's Champions League.

Bad weekend...

Bolton and good ole' Henrik "Toemrer" Pedersen

Working for a major donor organisation in a developing country can be extremely frustrating at times.
After such a frustrating week at work, I needed my usual escape, watching some good football with an ice cold draft beer!
While it did not seem overly exciting, I decided to watch the FA Cup match between Oldham Athletic and Bolton Wanderers. Bolton won 1-0 after scoring an early goal on a nice header by the young (and for me unknown) Ricardo Te Vaz.

While the game was a bit of a bore (although a good British Cup fight) it did bring memories to see good old Henrik "Toemrer" Pedersen: When I was a kid, I lived in a village in central Jutland called Bording, where I also played on the local football team. Although we sucked, I did get to play against some of the major teams in the area (with the not so internationally resounding names as AGF, Silkeborg, Ikast and Hammerum...). In another small village, called Ans, they had Mr. Pedersen on his team, and I am sure I got to tackle him a few times!
Of course, my (not so glorious) footballing career stopped there. While I went on to many years of schooling and travelling, Mr. Pedersen went on to become Danish league top-scorer, playing in one of my old favourite clubs Silkeborg. Later, he went on to England.

Strange to think that many years later, I would sit in a bar in Accra, Ghana, watching him play an FA Cup match in England!