FC Copenhagen nearly out of the race

Another subpar effort has relegated the defending league champs to fourth place in the top division

Crisis: 2008/09 Eurpean games in danger

Readers of my humble blog will know I'm not the type of fan to join the first choir of critics when something goes wrong. But a number of things has now added up to the 4th position being more realistic than the gold medal. Here is a quick look at how the league will end and the most obvious issues.

Monday Esbjerg fB drew 1-1 against AaB. Crucial actually, as a Aalborg win would have definitely put them in a position to move past the painful 60 point barrier. It was when looking forward to that game I realized how much in trouble we are. But thanks to Esbjerg the league is still open.

My prediction is actually done by a Perl script that eats the league table and the remaining matches outputting a distribution of likely finishing points for each team. It's still in beta (whatever you'd call a big hack) and I don't have time to figure out how to show you the actual distributions because i do not agree with the code tag right now ;-) but look:


AaB 64
FC Midtjylland 58
FC K�benhavn 57
OB 55
AC Horsens 51
Esbjerg fB 46
FC Nordsj�lland 47
Randers FC 45
Br�ndby IF 44
AGF 32
Viborg 24
Lyngby 19
Most guesses are about +/- 6 "precise". Meaning it wouldn't be unreasonable to hope for more than 60 points and that AaB can still miss that threshold.

And a bit of the harsh criticism I agree with:

• Jesper Grønkjær is not a striker


• A number of players deserves more playing time: Oscar Wendt, Ailton Almeida a.o.


• New players hasn't played fully as good as expected


• The midfield is impotent

Whatever the problem we need to win our three games versus the bottom three teams with whatever team we got. Take revenge on Esbjerg on the 27th. And approach the AaB game on the 12th of May like it was life or death. And on the 24th of May we play relegating Lyngby (3 points) while AaB host OB in a very open game. Nothing is settled until the 90th minutes of those games is my guess.

Wonderful Copenhagen elimination

AET Esbjerg [2 - 2] FC Copenhagen
67' [0 - 1] M. Jørgensen
104' [1 - 1] J. Bech
114' [1 - 2] J. Grønkjær
120' [2 - 2] J. Lange
Copyright © 1998-2008 LiveScore.com

Meaning Esbjerg fB progress to the final on 3-2 aggregate.

And that Danish journalists will have to make up new wild stories to portray a crisis situation. Because this game as well as the April 13th 0-0 draw in Odense saw some very good performances and seemingly reasonable tactics. The two games before that didn't but I'll leave that for now.

But winning the league is the priority now. Which isn't at all impossible. Looking at the standings and the remaining matches I'd say there is at least 40% chance of that happening by "chance" (yes I'm doing a statistical analysis that isn't quite ready for the limeligth yet) - and add to that the frustration gained today and the overall performance progress. But it will be a lot more exciting than in most recent seasons. Stay tuned on the Danish league.

Michael Silberbauer Lost Four Teeth for FC Copenhagen: The Danish League Round Up

Michael Silberbauer had to be substituted in the first half of FC Copenhagen's game against fellow Champions League hopefuls OB.

A head collision with OB's Esben Hansen meant that Silberbauer had to pay an urgent visit to a nearby dentist. He lost FOUR teeth (My God!!).

Allbäck returning to native Sweden

Allback, who turns 35 in July, signed a contract Wednesday with second-division side Orgryte, where the Sweden striker broke through in 1992.

Fully as expected. Thank you for your services, Mr. Allbäck.