Bundpropligaen

FC Copenhagen has surely been one of the teams of the year: they upset everyone by playing excellent football in the CL, coming second in their group, only behind mighty Barcelona, and will now face Chelsea in the Last-16.

In the Danish League, no team has ever been so dominating as FC Copehagen is now: they are undefeated in the league, and as they go on winter-break, they are impressive 19 points ahead the second ranked OB. There is no doubt they will be champions, it is only a question of how many records they will beat.

So is all this good for the Danish league? It seems doubtful. It is not the Danish league that has become better; it is FC Copenhagen that has run away from everyone else!

While FC Copenhagen is not only well-managed, they are very rich compared to any other club in Denmark, and are sure to become more so. The other teams in the league are all pretty level: there are only 16 points between OB on second spot, and the bottom team AaB. Of the 12 teams, six or seven seem to be fighting to avoid relegation, while the remaining teams basically fight for the European spots, where one, given FC Copenhagen's success, may lead to another Danish CL spot. That would not be nice; as much as I would love to see my dear Brøndby have the opportunity, I only think they would be there to be humilliated. Bad for Brøndby, and bad for Danish football.

FC Copenhagen's success is admirable, but it is not great to see the Danish league become a mono-league.

Oh well, I live in Venezuela, and hardly follow it anyway...

FCK-Brøndby

And Brøndby lost 0-2 to FC Copenhagen in the Danish derby. I think it was to be expected, although my Brøndby heart always keeps a tinge of hope - the Danish league is effectively a one-team league, and Brøndby has not been able to win in Copenhagen for six seasons.
Sadly, Brøndby fans behaved ungracefully again, so only thing that remains is to congratulate FCK fans, and hope again: "next season...."

Ynkeligt ynkeligt Brøndby

It is not much I follow Danish football as I am living abroad. Still, I try to always follow the results of Brøndby IF, although it has lately brought me in a foul mood to know that the once in Denmark so mighty Brøndby is only becoming worse and worse. It all seemed to start when Michael Laudrup left as coach - perhaps he was seeing a club with pedantic leaders who seemed to invest heavily on second-rate players from second-rate leagues and forget its youth programme. A club that had forgotten that it belongs to the fans and not to one family.
Today Brøndby lost to the bottom team of the Danish league, HB Køge, 1-3 at home, and the club that sees itself as belonging to the top of Danish football should now admit that the top of Danish football belongs to other teams that have worked hard and retained what it is to be a top football club, values that have been forgotten in Brøndby.
The coach Kent Nielsen has been fired, but truth is that the problems are much deeper: there is an inept leadership and most players are simply not good enough if Brøndby has to return to the top - most of the players go.
Ynkeligt Brøndby.

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.

Same procedure as every year

Every second or third year Danish clubs do well in Europe. Last year Aalborg Boldklub had an excellent spell first in the Champions League and then in the UEFA Cup, and FC Copenhagen and FC Midtjylland both did well in the UEFA Cup.
So this season there were again great expectations that Denmark could ascend in the ranks of European clubs, perhaps even to the degree of having a team in the CL every year, or even another qualification spot!
Well, keep dreaming unrealistic dreams... Danish club football should not compare itself with Netherlands, Belgium or Romania, but should go one level down, to Austria or Hungary. Perhaps you could also say Cyprus and Switzerland, but these are already showing more steady participation in the European tournaments than Denmark has.

There were high hopes for the three Danish teams remaining in Europe this week. FC Copenhagen had an apparently good shot at qualifying for the Champions League, but were disappointing, not to say pathetic, in their elimination against Apoel Nicosia, where they looked like a team without motivation and power.
Brøndby IF looked excellent against Herth Berlin after winning 2-1 at home, and winning 1-0 in Berlin. But in the last 15 minutes of the match the Germans scored three goals against a Brøndby team that suddenly looked completely physically worn out!
Finally, we had Odense Boldklub, who never had a chance against a superior Italian side Genoa, and after losing 3-1 in Italy, played 1-1 in Denmark. However, the game was marked by physical games bordering violence, in particular the vicious attack on Genoa's Ivan Juric belongs in a criminal court.

So that is what we can take with us from Danish participation in Europe: lack of motivation, low physical strength and viciousness (unless FC Copenhagen, who will be playing the UEFA Europa League, does somewhat decently) .
But hey, surely in a couple of years one Danish team will have another good season, and everyone will be hoping again!

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!

Agurketid in Århus

In Danish "Agurketid" means "cucumber time", to denote a period with almost nothing in the news. I guess these days are football-agurketid for me. Sure there are matches in the Libertadores, first round CL qualifiers, the gold cup, as well as numerous rumours about transfers (although most are about Real Madrid), but without some of my favourite leagues there is not much to talk about. Of course, this has been good for making some research on some lists I plan to do: top-10 beers to drink while watching football, top-50 World Cup goals, top-20 greatest World Cup matches.
As I am spending some days in Århus, and today I ran by Århus Stadium, I thought I would look a bit into the major football team of Århus, AGF. Although they have traditionally been one of the major teams in Danish football with five Danish Championships and nine Danish Cup titles, as well as the record of 65 seasons in the Danish top league. In spite of this, the club has had disappointingly bad results ever since 1996, when they finished second in the league and won the Cup.
This is of course hardly satifactory for a team with strong traditions and the second city of Denmark, and there have been investments in new players as well as in the new coach Erik Rasmussen, who had a succesful run as coach in FC Midtjylland. Although ending only 6th last season, I think most observers of Danish football would rank them as outsiders to do well, with players such as Jakob Poulsen, Peter Graulund, Ulrik Lindkvist, as well as some foreigners, including Englishman Mark Howard, the US national team player Benny Feilhaber.
However, personally I think their team is too narrow, I hardly believe they will make it beyond 6th place next season.
Anyway, I must have been really bored to start looking up things about AGF!

Scandalous Brøndby

In the last few games of the Danish season Brøndby has managed to throw all away and end the season an appalling way. It all started to go wrong when they were destroyed 0-4 by FC Copenhagen in the match that in reality decided the title. But even after the debacle in Copenhagen, Brøndby should have managed to remain in second position ahead of Odense B. However, yesterday, Brøndby lost 2-4 at home to FC Midtjylland, and were surpassed by OB, who won well-deserved silver medals.
Brøndby on the other hand ended as a pathetic team whose season will be sadly remembered for hooliganism and players that were simply not up to the challenge when it was called for. In any other club with great ambitions such a horrible season would be a wake-up call for drastic changes, but I am afraid that Brøndby's leadership is not up to it, since the leadership itself is one of the problems. Brøndby is still led by Per Bjerregaard, the emperor of Brøndby, who quietly pulls all the strings of the club - did so succesfully for some years, but the last few meager seasons for a club of great ambitions should call for a new leadership, who will look into some of the deeper problems of the club.
Firstly, they need to have a serious discussion with the coach, Kent Nielsen. I would often be the first to argue that the coach should be the first to be fired, but the problem is that except for Lars Olsen from OB (who will be unlikely to leave OB for now), I see no alternative to Kent Nielsen. Also, although I feel that he has been too careful and unable to motivate the players, I am not sure whether the problem is Kent Nielsen, or the lack of players. No matter what, Kent Nielsen will have to reconsider his style and approach entering next season, or Brøndby will seriously have to start looking for a new coach.
The second aspect that needs to be looked at are the players. Some are simply not up to this level, most notably the strikers: Morten Duncan and Ousman Jallow are simply not good enough and should go. In midfield there should also be a major resturcturing: Michael Krohn-Dehli may have been one of Brøndby's best players, but truth is that he is a player who only performs when it goes well, and is unable to lift a team. Samuel Holmén should also be taken out, while they need to look for a strong midfielder with good technique, and with strong leadership skills. Finally, a they need a more wide selection of defenders: the only one with any quality is Max von Schleebrügge, and guys like Mikkel Bischoff and Daniel Wass are simply not good enough for this level.
The final aspect that I hope Brøndby looks at in detail next season is the small group of very bad fans that again and again have behaved violently wherever Brøndby plays. The club leadership apparently keeps believing that this has nothing to do with the club, and does not seem eager to want to register and ban people from its games. The club leadership should be much more resolute in tackling this issue if they are not to be seen as accomplices to the violence.
It has been a depressing season yet again for any Brøndby fan, and I hope that next season the club will start showing again what it is all about: Brøndby the best!

Danish Cup final in Copenhagen

This week Aalborg B qualified for the Danish Cup final, where the northern Juts will be facing FC Copenhagen. FC Copenhagen is Denmark's richest and strongest club, effectively in the way of making Denmark a one-club country.
The Danish cup final is always played in Parken, Denmark's national stadium, which, incidentally, is also the home-turf of FC Copenhagen. This will undoubtfully give the Copenhagen side another added advantage in the cup final, which Allan Kuhn (AaB's reserve coach) has also been out criticizing. Just because of this, the cup is already close to being in the hands of FC Copenhagen.

I find it a pity that they don't do a variation of venues for the final each year, kind of like they do with the UEFA Cup or the champions league. The Danish Cup final is only a Danish event, but it should belong to the entire country, not only to Copenhagen, and I think there would be many potential venues for a final, like Odense, Århus, Herning, Brøndby, and yes, even Aalborg.

Onside Manager

As the league's in the entire world are progressing, I have of course made my own fantasy managers' teams on different sites. One of them is on TV3's Onside.dk, where you can make your fantasy team for the Danish league. Since many years ago, when I was s young and jolly guy, I won fifth prize in Denmark on a similar one with Politiken, I have again joined this one, but mostly to compete with old friends, whom I nevertheless usually defeat (especially the girls!).
Onside Manager is ok, although some clear faults, for instance that there are no automatic substitutions options.
As it is now, my team looks as follows:

• Goalkeeper: Karim Zaza, Aalborg B
• Defenders: Max Von Schleebrügge, Brøndby; Kasper Bøgelund, Aalborg B; Dennis Cagara, FC Nordsjælland; Thomas Helveg, Odense B.
• Midfielders: Stefan Gislason, Brøndby; Eric Demba-Djemba, Odense B; Anders Due, Aalborg B; Jonas Borring, FC Midtjylland
• Attack: Ousman Jallow, Brøndby; Frank Kristensen, FC Midtjylland
• Coach: Lars Olsen, Odense B

I have lived up to my principle of no players from Copenhagen, although some of my selections are admittedly looking a bit dubious: Ousman Jallow in attack is not looking as strong in attack as I had hoped, and I think he will become a bench-warmer in Brøndby.

Anyway, but I think I will win, and the name of the team says it all: "Hvis jeg ikke vinder er det dommeres skyld".

The Danish national team

As Denmark prepares to face Malta on a world cup qualifier tomorrow, there has been criticism in the Danish media that people are not interested nor follow the Danish national team as the used to. This has been blamed on the team playing boring (which I personally don't agree on), of lacking results (Denmark has not qualified for the last two mayor tournaments), of lacking players of quality, of coach Morten Olsen having a bad temper with the media, and of a general lack of media attention.

In spite of all these things, I think there is a deeper reasoning in the Danish people's lack of interest: Lyngby Boldklub.

Aalborg out of the UEFA

The did well Aalborg B: they played wonderful matches in the Champions League and after two stunning victories against Deportivo la Coruña (who as all Spanish teams nevertheless always underestimates any team from any other country but England and Italy) they faced Manchester City. The Danes put up a great fight, and after winning 2-0 in the second leg forced a penalty shoot-out that the English came out of victorious.
Still, for a small irrelevant league like the Danish, the northern Juts' achievement is quite extraordinary, and they certainly have the best record of any Danish team in Europe. I think this achievement is due to hard work, modesty and knowledge of own limitations and forces, some things that the bigger and arrogant Danish teams from FC Copenhagen and Brøndby IF know nothing about.

So congratulations and thank you to AaB although I must add that as a football fan, I would any time prefer to see Manchester City progress to the next round, with its big stars, than the charming but unknown second-rate players from some unknown faraway corner of northern Europe.

Being a Brøndby fan....

I am a Brøndby supporter, and I consider Brøndby the best team in Denmark. That said, there are some bad things about supporting Brøndby, primarily the "fans"/hooligans who give the rest of us Brøndby supporters the following reputation:

• We have never read anything but the label of a beer
  
• Our diet is composed of pizza, burgers and cheap beer
• We have never talked to any woman besides our mothers and the woman selling beer at Aldi
  
• If we ever have children, we will name them all Kim Vilfort, even the girls
  
• Our geographical abilities are limited to knowing the bus number to the stadium
  
• We cut each others hair, and that is why we're all bald skinheads
  
• None of us have ever held a job for any longer than until the next match
• More than a Brøndby victory, we like beating up people
• Burp, fart, shit, puke...
  
• None of us actually know the rules in football...

Sadly for the real Brøndby fans, the vast majority of supporters who dearly love the blue-yellow team, who love football and who know how to behave, there is a small group of Brøndby supporters who for some reason keeps following our team, giving us the above reputation and making trouble like they did yesterday in Århus, after Brøndby lost 2-1 to AGF. Therefore the loss is doubly sad.

Go Brøndby!

The wolves from Midtjylland

When I was a young lad I lived for a while in central Jutland, not far from Ikast. Back then, Ikast had a team in the top Danish league, and did quite well: they played a memorable cup final against Brøndby in 1989, and I went to many of their matches. It was all a bit strange for this little town in the middle of the marshes, but it was so: local traders, traditionally with a lot of money, poured money into the team.
Some years ago the teams of central Jutland, Ikast and Herning, got together to make a big team, seated in Herning, but pulling from Ikast's success. They created a team with the really stupid name, FC Midtjylland. I have always found it a silly thing, and have never supported them: I would prefer good ole' Ikast, and I find that FC Midtjylland is an artificial money-creation, more than a team with traditional support.

That is my personal opinion, but not to take away the extraordinary results over the last years as the investment of FC Midtjylland money-men starts to pay off: FC Midtjylland is leading the Danish Superliga, and last night they opened up at European level! In the UEFA Cup qualifers FC Midtjylland was to face the Premier League team from Manchester City. A Danish team should be no problem for a Premier League team, and although the English stars grossly under-estimated the Danes, it doesn't take away the fact that FC Midtjylland played a great match and deservedly won 0-1 in Manchester.

The team emblem is a wolve, so the wolves roared in England last night.

Euro 2008 road/boat-trip

This Euro 2008 also took me on a combined road-boat-trip with some friends like during the 2006 World Cup. Destination: Faroe Islands and Iceland.
In fact, the trip started on the day that Turkey was playing Croatia, when the four of us going on the trip met up in the Danish town of Viborg, from where we would drive to Hanstholm on the following day to take the ferry that would take us to the North Atlantic islands.

Viborg has a football team called Viborg FF. Until last year they played in the best Danish league, with decent results. However, Viborg is more of a handball town, and after being relegated, I think it’ll be a while before we see them in the “Superliga”.
Perhaps it was the lack of a local team, but there were not many people in the local sports pub where we went to watch Turkey-Croatia over many good Classic Fadøl.
It was perhaps understandable, since the match was not overly exciting, but all the drama happened in those last minutes of the extra time: Croatia scored to 1-0 with one minute left but the never-give-up Turks equalized in the last second. We were not many in the pub, but you could feel the drama when the disappointed Croats without confidence lost the penalty kicks.

After seeing the Cathedral of Viborg we continued to Hanstholm on the next day to get on our Smyril Line Ferry, M/S Nörrona, where we would spend the next two days on our way to the Faroe Islands.

The boat was full of all Scandinavian nationalities and a lot of Germans. So although the lounge bar of the ferry was full for the evening’s match, there seemed to be no major support for either the Netherlands or Russia. Over beers on the rocking ship we saw a surprising turn of events in the tournament: the Dutch had until then seemed invincible in their first-round matches. But a Dutch coach, Guus Hiddink, heading the Russians, apparently knew how to handle his countrymen. Although it took them into extra time to win 3-1, the Russian victory was very well-deserved and they were ready for the semi-final.

No flying-Dutchman on the North Atlantic.

Although the Faroe Islands were not participating in the European Championship, the game the following day would see one of the teams play that had defeated the Faroe Islands in the qualifiers. In fact, the Faroe Islands scored half of all their goals in the qualifiers against the Italians, who barely defeated the Faroese with 1-2 and 1-3.
Italy had disappointed in the tournament so far, but everyone knows that Italy starts playing well in the latter round, while Spain is completely opposite: the Spaniards start well, and end up losing.
So it was with only cautious optimism, not to say outright pessimism, that we got comfortable to watch Spain-Italy in the lounge-bar after passing the Shetland Islands.
But Spain won! After penalty-kicks all right, but a deserved and unexpected victory in a long 0-0 match between the two Southern European giants.
Spain was now ready to their first semi-final since 1984, and we had a couple of days break from the damn boat and from football on the lovely Faroe Islands, where besides amazing landscapes we saw a football pitch situated beautifully between the cliffs at Eidi.

One more day on the boat until we were on Iceland, but not before we watched the first of the semi-finals between Germany and Turkey on the lounge of the ship.
There was, now, no doubt who most people were supporting: there were many Germans on the boat and not a single Turk.
The Turks were also like that on the pitch in Basel, where there were many injured players. Still, Turkey gave another memorable fight against the mighty and annoyingly efficient Germans. Often the Germans were having trouble against never-ending Turkish attacks, and it was incredible when the Turks equalized to 2-2 with only two minutes left of the match; were the Turks about to do it again…?
But if anyone can do late victories, it is Germany: Phillipe Lahm scored a winner for the Germans with only a few seconds to go, and there was just a petty celebration from the Germans on the ship, and no party. I think one Turk on the ship would have partied better than the hundred of Germans that were already there.

In the qualifiers for this Euro 2008, Iceland was in the same group as Spain (1-1 in Reykyavik and Spain won 1-0 in Mallorca). So it may have been proper that we arrived at the port of Seydisfjördur in Eastern Iceland, on the day when Spain was facing Russia in the semi-final.
We drove for a couple of hours, passing the mighty waterfalls of Dettifoss, before making it to Myvatn, with its other-worldly landscapes. There, we were to stay at a cabin at the charming Dimmuborgir Guesthouse.
We arrived in a hurry, as the match was already starting. There was no TV in the cabin, so we sat down at the kitchen table of the owners, in front of a small TV, to watch the match.
One of us broke his glasses and thought he was provided with some condoms to repair them… (no further comments necessary…).

Spain had defeated Russia 4-1 in the first round, but after Russia’s match against the Netherlands and the return of Arshavin, expectation were rightfully higher on the Russians. Nevertheless, the Russians were hugely disappointing: they hardly threatened the Spanish goal and although Spain scored late, they won 3-0 in a victory that seemed much too easy.

Spain-Germany in the final!

Iceland is amazing, and we thoroughly enjoyed the following days, almost forgetting there was a major football tournament going on as we went hiking among lava, whale-watching, smelling sulphur and playing yatzy in the most obscure places we could find.
On the day of the match we went white-water rafting on the Jokulsa river near Varmahlid. It was a great and challenging raft on an absolutely gorgeous glacial river along narrow cliffs. There were three rafts, ours a combined Danish-Canadian crew, and one with only Germans. Of course, the Germans started shouting “Deutchland!” as they ventured out on the rapids, and we immediately replied “Viva España!”

Perhaps it was a premonition of things to come for the Germans that same evening: on a 4-level rapid our raft slid through almost perfectly, while the German raft tipped over into the cold water in a spectacular fall.
A cold shower for the Germans, and it would not be the last on that day.

We stopped on the way to Reykyavik in Borgarness to watch the match. We found a small cozy restaurant with a large TV, where we also had a well-deserved hamburger after our days’ adventure.
And although the place was full of German tourists/fans, we had no doubt that we won (well, Spain as well…): we had plenty of beers and openly celebrated Torres’ goal. So much that one German annoyed said at the end of the match: “You must be happy Germany lost…”
We were indeed, but even happier that Spain had (finally) won!

“Viva España” became the motto of the last few days in Iceland, where we went discovering around the “Golden Circle” (Pinghvellir, Godafoss and Geysirs) and the beautiful city of Reykyavik.
Go to Iceland! Even to watch football!

End of season

Today Brøndby defeated FC Copenhagen 2-1 in Brøndby stadium. There isn't much to play for: AaB already won the league, and Brøndby is trailing in 9th place in the league. But FC Copenhagen are Brøndby´s arch-rivals, and a victory at least puts a bit of sweet taste into an otherwise bitter season.
I am back - and I have a good influence on these teams ;-)

Aalborg Boldklub

With a 2-0 victory at home against Brøndby IF, Aalborg BK just became Danish champions for the third time in their history. This happens with style, as there are still two rounds left in the league, but they can not be reached by their nearest rivals, last years champions, FC Copenhagen.

I have been away, but was very surprised to see AaB (as they are usually called) be leading the league as I returned; but apparently, the team from northern Jutland has been a surprise throughout the season, showing stability and commitment, something the defending champions of money-spending Copenhagen hadn´t.

As a Brøndby fan, I am happy FC Copenhagen didn´t win the title, and well, happy to see the AaB fans party their asses off: they are great fans, a great town (Aalborg), and deserve to be champions.

I know they will celebrate it with massive amounts of beer: Cheers!

Back to (football) life

I have now left the harsh football backlands of Northern Mozambique, where following football was so difficult. I have only followed (superficially) the champions league and the major European leagues. Now, I am extremely surprised to see that in the Danish league AaB (Aalborg Boldklub - Danish clubs have never been good with names...) is winning by a pretty large margin ahead of FC Midtjylland (those names...).
And my favourites, Brøndby B, remain on the lower half...

Lyngby Boldklub

I have great sympathy for Lyngby Boldklub. Firstly, when I was in High School in Birkerod, not far, I often went to their games in their tiny stadium - to eat their delicious sausages in this charming town north of Copenhagen.

They always hosted young talented players, and there have been and are still many of Denmark´s best players that were schooled in Lyngby.

In 2001 the club was forcefully relegated to "Danmarksserien" due to having gone bankrupt. They closed their whole professional office, and returned to being amateurs, but still, with massive talents. Havign ascended through 5 divisions, they are now back in the Superliga where they belong.

Who would have thought!? I did. Back in 2001-2002 I told a friend, who is a die-hard Lyngby fan, that they´d be up again latest by 2010. I was right again. And he didn't believe me, and did bet a crade of beer with me.

Even though I am not watching football I am still earning beers from it!!!!

Goodbye Michael Laudrup

I heard that Michael Laudrup will not renew his contract as coach in Brondby. Sad for Brondby. It has been six excellent years with him as coach, where new young players have flourished, and the team ahs played beautiful football. All this, in spite of not winning any titles this season.

Michael Laudrup was the greatest Danish player ever, and a true gentleman on and off the pitch. Some rumours are tying him with big European clubs (rumours always abound about Real Madrid, but I doubt he should be part of that circus). No matter what, he will be missed in Brondby. I will miss him, and hope to see him return!

Cheers Mr. Laudrup!