Danish league: round 8 status, round 9 preview

Eight rounds and 48 games of 33 rounds and 198 matches have been played. Or almost a quarter of the season which might be as good a time to sum up as any. Plus: tomorrow, Sunday 19 September 2010, 18:00 CET, FC Copenhagen plays Brøndby IF in the so called "New Firm"; the match that Danish fans used to put up with the rest of the shoddy season for.

Round 8 status

FC Copenhagen (København / FCK) have taken the lead alone: Unbeaten. 6 wins. 20 points. Numbers that speak for themselves? Not yet, really.

Round 9 preview

19-09-2010 18:00 FC København-Brøndby: IF 0.47 0.30 0.23; always unpredictable but logic says 2-1 or something similar.

Read the full article with status on the whole league and previews of the entire 9th round at Footbo.

Just another championship

Last Sunday was the night of the "New Firm" - one of the at least three annual matches vs. former Danish flagship, Brøndby IF. FC København won 0-2 away. The championship was practically secured.

Being a Danish football fan, FC Copenhagen season ticket holder and occasional blogger I should have been excited, right? And after the win I should be even more excited, right? Wrong.

Brøndby IF is not a force to be reckoned with in the top of Danish football any more. Years of mismanagement combined with entirely unrealistic ambitions have left them with the role of an unintentional entertainment factor. In different circumstances thee, maybe four, of their players would have a chance on the FC Copenhagen rooster. I didn't bother watching the hours of TV warm-up this time. I hadn't met up with a bunch of friends to shout at the screen - let alone traveled to the windy, suburban stadium, now a place enjoyable by hooligans alone. I opened a Carlsberg from my couch fully expecting the win and not even worrying too much about the consequences of the low risk of a draw or loss.

In fact, I bet 5 Danish kroner (I don't bet a lot) on 0-2:
Spot on - but unfortunately combined with a 2-2 outcome of FC Nordsjælland vs Randers FC which ended 1-1.

I didn't bother watching yesterday's SønderjyskE vs OB which ended as a surprise 2-0 win for the relegation threatened south Jutland team over our pursuing OB. Because OB would need to practically win the rest of their games anyway and sooner or later that would slip for them, I didn't doubt. It did happen a bit soon, though. Now OB need to win their last three games to get to the 62 points we're at already. That happening combined with us losing our three games and OB overcoming a +25 goal score difference... well, it's not happening. (My model says ~0.0186% before taking the goal difference into account.)

The real entertainment these days is in watching Brøndby fans and players babble on TV and reading the Brøndby IF inclined journalists rant on and on about how Brøndby was the better team for parts of the game, how a bronze medal is still possible despite their unlucky start of the season, how the club emanates a unique team spirit and has supporters of supernatural abilities. And in trying to get into some European clashes, of course.

A highly unpredictable league is drawing to an end. I'm considering a look at the mildly entertaining and very wrong prophesies made by journalists and experts at season start and half-time one of these days. But for now, I'll just dump some tendencies for the remaining games:

05-05-2010
Randers FC-AaB 0.311 0.289 0.4
FC Midtjylland-Brøndby IF 0.427 0.191 0.382
FC København-HB Køge 0.678 0.178 0.144
06-05-2010
Esbjerg fB-Silkeborg 0.404 0.281 0.3145
AGF-SønderjyskE 0.356 0.311 0.333
OB-FC Nordsjælland 0.456 0.222 0.322
09-05-2010
Brøndby IF-AaB 0.352 0.264 0.385
HB Køge-FC Midtjylland 0.278 0.178 0.544
Silkeborg-FC København 0.289 0.2 0.511
SønderjyskE-Esbjerg fB 0.308 0.286 0.407
FC Nordsjælland-AGF 0.422 0.222 0.356
OB-Randers FC 0.456 0.311 0.233
16-05-2010
Randers FC-Brøndby IF 0.326 0.258 0.416
AGF-OB 0.267 0.289 0.444
FC Midtjylland-Silkeborg 0.433 0.211 0.356
AaB-HB Køge 0.578 0.233 0.189
Esbjerg fB-FC Nordsjælland 0.416 0.247 0.337
FC København-SønderjyskE 0.544 0.233 0.222

Placed 2nd with three matches to go things are getting tricky

A picture is worth a thousand words...

X-axis is final standing points of the top three teams, Y-axis are probabilities. Many combinations are mutually exclusive, of course. The graph is based on this Google Spreadsheet.

It's about 47 hours 'till the "final":

• 17-05-2009 17:30 FC København - Brøndby

However, FC Midtjylland placed 4th will play both Brøndby and OB plus OB will have to play Sønderjyske and Horsens who are fighting to avoid relegation. Nothing has been settled.

The world's 50 greatest soccer derbies

44 - FC Copenhagen v Brondby

Denmark's big derby is called the "New Firm" with Brondby founded in 1964 in the drab industrial section of the city while Copenhagen, who have a huge white-collar fan base, came about after a merger of minor clubs in 1992. Copenhagen have a "cool" image while their rivals have a "big fat chip on their shoulder".

Pyrotechnics

Yesterday's derby will be remembered for the pyrotechnics competition between Urban Crew (I assume) and Southside Whatever (I don't know) that got a bit out of hand. Check it out:



I sort of enjoy a bit of crazy atmosphere myself. But any kind of pyrotechnics are banned at Danish stadiums. I suspect this has led to rivalry as to who can break this ban in the most spectacular way. These incidents are a bit overkill visually and must be damn annoying to breathe the smoke from. But what Denmark is discussing today is how to make life harder for us fans, because obviously we're murderous. Because the Copenhagen crowd had a couple of unthinking individuals who tossed the fireworks into the neighboring stand below them (to the right in the first clip of the video)! Now that's idiocy!

I'm a bit satisfied the first thing I see at Urban Crew's forum is people expressing exactly the same sentiments. Here's a Danish course for you:

• Olsson: "At lysene kastes mod en neutral tribune er FUCKING pinligt!" = "That lights were thrown at a neutral stand is F*CKING embarrassing!"


• hjorte: "...men det gik altså over gevind, uacceptabelt.. Hvis lysene var blevet holdt på tribunen havde det været flot..." = "...but it went wrong, unacceptable.. If the lights had been held up at our own stand it had been beautiful..."


• Etc.

Main stream media has visited the same forum. But quoted quite differently - need I go into details?

Another incident yesterday was Denmark's Olympic 100 meter sprinter and long jumper, Morten Jensen, and his family were attacked by a group of Brøndby hooligans. Beaten up pretty badly it seems, but Morten says he'll still go to China. (Source: OL-kandidat tæsket af hooligans)

Oh and the game? We lost 1-2.

Aalborg clinched Danish title; Brøndby darby tomorrow

In case you didn't notice...

Aalborg clinched the Danish championship with two matches to go on Thursday, beating Brondby at home 2-0 and opening an insurmountable eight-point lead over last year’s champions, FC Copenhagen.

Most likely final standings include:

1. Gold / Champions League qualification: AaB 68, 69 or 71 points


2. Silver / UEFA Cup qualification: FC København 60, 61 or 63 p


3. Bronze / UEFA Cup qualification: FC Midtjylland 59 or 62 p


4. Fourth / TOTO Cup: OB 52, 53, 54, 55 or 57 p


5. Fifth / n/a: AC Horsens 47, 49, 51 or 53 p

(My emphasis on most probable final points.)

So this season's far from over: Tomorrow we have to beat former rivals Brøndby to put them in place and secure the silverware!

Placed ninth Brøndby looks relatively easy this year and statistics speak of a possible win. But actually they made 28 points at home so far, FC København only 23 away. And averaging this season's scores the tendency is 1.05 - 1.4 which is a bit narrow for my liking - but since 53% of the team's games had less than three goals, that might be a good bet. Significant injuries: Brøndby IF: Mikkel Bischoff, Morten 'Duncan' Rasmussen, Morten Rasmussen and Trond Andersen; FC København: Jesper Grønkjær is recovering from knee surgery while Mikael Antonsson, Niclas Jensen and Rasmus Würtz might soon be playing.

Wild guess: 1-1 draw, our goal scored by Morten Nordstrand ;-)

Quick preview: Sunday's home game vs. Brøndby IF

(Sorry. I forgot how Blogger mutilates tables. Scroll down, please...)

	FC København	Draw	Brøndby IF
Probabilities (win)	~60%	~25%	~15%
Injuries	Jesper Grønkjær, Rasmus Würtz and Michael Silberbauer		David Williams, Jean-Philippe Peguero, Mikkel Bischoff, Morten Rasmussen, Nicolaj Agger, Peter Madsen and Trond Andersen
League position	#1 +12 goals, 33 points		#9 -3 goals, 23 points
Past 10 encounters	5 wins, 9 goals	2 draws	3 wins, 7 goals
Points last 5 league games home/away	20		5

This week's league: Elite tactics vs. mediocre dog fighting

The league in a nutshell: Copenhagen barely clinch victory in tactical top flight encounter with Odense while Brøndby suffer loss to league run-of-the-mill Esbjerg fB despite hard fought come back. Both Copenhagen teams scored twice but that must be the only similarity.

FC København - Odense Boldklub 2-1

This Saturday I witnessed from the sideline FC København registering another home win. By half time I was wondering why I hadn't put a bet on 0-0 because this was at least as defensive a game as anyone could have predicted. Before this weekend Odense only allowed 0.6 goals against on average and hadn't been beaten for seven games straight. We used five or six defenders in total and played the first hour with only one really dedicated striker. But with half an hour to go Marcus Allbäck made it 1-0 only minutes after entering the pitch. That man only scores important goals.

Now the game opened up a bit and we got two more goals to enjoy before leaving for post-game beers and games of billiard at the Copenhagen bars. A typical set piece header by Brede Hangeland and another sharp striker type finish by former FC København player David Nielsen. 2-1, 3 points and in place at the league pole position while Odense stay 4th.

Esbjerg fB - Brøndby IF 3-2

The contrast to Brøndby IF's away game against Esbjerg fB couldn't have been sharper. For one thing, I witnessed it getting drenched in hails and rain from the warm comfort of my couch. Brøndby have declared their crisis is over and talked of silverware in the pre-game interviews. Only to allow Esbjerg's Njogu Demba-Nyren to score after just 32 seconds.

Esbjerg continued dominating the game by excellent short passing, technical details and optimist attacking. Jesper Mikkelsen and Demba-Nyren made it 3-0. But before Brøndby collapsed Chris Katongo was brought on and managed to make it 3-1 by a resolute cannon ball finish from close distance. Then Stefan Gislason, Martin Ericsson and the strong wind collaborated on turning a corner kick into another goal.

Pressing for the equalizer Brøndby also allowed a couple of Esbjerg counter attacks. One of these ended in Niki Zimling - who otherwise had a great day at the job - wasting the opportunity of taking a penalty kick. Esbjerg fB are now placed 8th two points ahead of Brøndby.