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".

UEFA Cup blues

OK so we lost to a really good team round 1, right? Since then their league results have been...

• St. Etienne-Grenoble 0-2


• St. Etienne-Lorient 1-4


• Marseille-St. Etienne 3-1

Impressive. Their coach has been given until Sunday: First beat Rosenborg then beat Rennes... or you're fired. Coincidentally our coach, Solbakken, has stated his intentions to move to something bigger than FC København. I suppose a lot of fans will agree the feeling is mutual. Perhaps there is a job for you in France next Sunday? Perhaps not.

Tomorrow is round 2 which - of course - I look so much forward to I search the web for obscure info: Uefa Cup Preview: Valencia - FC Copenhagen

Valencia will be looking to make a strong start in Europe as they play their first group game when FC Copenhagen visit Mestalla on Thursday evening, while the visitors will be looking for their first points.

[...]

Valencia in Mestalla will, arguably, be their toughest game and without first-choice centre-backs Ulrik Laursen and Peter Larsson they will not be relishing the prospect of an in-form David Villa. Defeat for the visitors could mean that they face an uphill struggle to make the next round

[...]

PREDICTION

Copenhagen are likely to travel to Mestalla to defend, but with a rearranged rearguard things may not be as organised as coach Ståle Solbakken would like and that is where Valencia could take advantage. There may be a few nerves from the home side at the outset, but an early goal should lift the team and then a comfortable victory is likely to be theirs.

Valencia 2 - 0 FC Copenhagen

Let me just mentally prepare for this sight for a second...

Group G Pld Pts
St Etienne 2 6
Valencia 1 3
Club Brugge 1 1
Rosenborg 2 1
København 2 0

Goodnight.

Oscar Wendt at IMScouting.com

Just found two interesting things: an article featuring one of my favourite players right now and the site the article is on. Check out 10 young players to watch:

6) Oscar Wendt (22), Left defender, FC Copenhagen (Denmark)

The Swedish international defender is one of the best defensive players in the Danish league, and is already being tracked by Borussia Monchengladbach and Italian clubs Juventus and Siena.

The fact that Wendt was part of the Swedish 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign has given him experience and confidence. Wendt is a very strong defender who combines a physical game with good pace and technique which allows him to provide good scoring opportunities. Definitely a player to keep an eye on.
(my emphasises)

Another semi-user-generated content site this one claims to be a valuable tool for agents, managers and fans. At the very least it's another must have link for my right hand column list of FC København relevant web pages. I personally couldn't resist signing up for a free account to see how much it rocks. Here is what they promise so far:

As a FREE member of IMScouting you can access a huge amount of features from the largest football player database in existence, including a basic search tool, player information, results, match events, fixtures and league information for more than 500 competitions around the world including Europe, Africa, South America, North America and Asia. [...] The database has been completed, and is constantly updated by a network of football experts based locally across the globe, with the sole focus to provide you with a genuine global grassroots insight into the world of professional football.

So what my little Google helper found for me was some type of blog post or news article that included information about one of FC København's players. But what else does the site tell me as a free account user? At Oscar's profile I'm quickly disappointed all I get is the "Overview" part - tabs General, Career, Media, Medical and Skills are all premium content for paying users. Current contract details are hidden for me too.

Oscar Wendt at IMScouting.com

However, if the site is really being used by agents, I'd guess it's info in general being relatively trustworthy. I like the position map bottom right. I'll try and see if they post more interesting articles and if it's useful for getting info on semi-obsure teams... such as Club Brugge we'll be facing in the UEFA Cup. With the free account. Which after browsing the site for a few minutes I fear isn't that usefull at all. But at 1,200 € a year the premium account is not something I'll try out anytime too soon I'm afraid. The FC København team profile shows a pretty dope nationality break down though:

I'm sure more usefull and/or funny features will entertain me. But for now just let it be known Oscar rules :-)

Checking out Footbo.com

Yet another chunk of my "need" for this blog has been chopped off. Perpetrators being the people behind Footbo.com, a social website for football fans.

So what is that site about? I've been checking it out lately and have gone from quite skeptical to nearly excited. It's a "Facebook only about football" type thing. You create a profile, connect with "friends" and write on their walls, show off your favourite teams, pick your favourite 11, taunt the opponent fans at the match page et cetera. What use is another social networking website then!?

What makes it worth your time is functionality it has that potentially leaves hitherto essential football sites obsolete. Like livescore.com, Footbo has that. And football-lineups.com too. For each game users can grade the players and best-of teams are automatically generated. Of course, there are league tables and all the usual sort of stuff. Users guess at any future result and "distribution cakes" are generated to illustrate expectations before the result is settled and each users prediction score is calculated (so far I didn't do too well). Sort of useful for match probabilities. And they have Michael Ballack write a blog (well one post so far).

Since I first set up Copenhagen Files in excitement about Google News and Blogger (Hello World) I have successively changed scope and direction (Media & Mission Statement (sort of) and Spring cleaning). Footbo has managed to merge so many features in one site it is actually both useful and fun. I'll now (every now and then) participate in their never-ending prediction game, grade players of matches I've seen, follow live scores and mingle with fellow football geeks. And perhaps post a bit less here at Copenhagen Files.

It remains to be seen how succesful Footbo will become. Will users add to its value or mess it up? And if the few weird kinks (it's still in beta) will be worked out nicely. But I already added a link to FC Københavns team page there in this blogs right hand column. And if you read this, please consider visiting my Footbo profile and add me as a "friend".

Enjoy.

Our standing

I guess when I get a nerdy idea I can't help pulling it through. Here's a merged table of all Danish Superliga plus our UEFA Cup group opponents. Points are home league point averages times country UEFA coefficient. A rough measure...

League pos.	Team	Funny points
1	Valencia	177
13	St. Etienne	54
3	Club Brugge	53
1	OB	50
2	FC København	48
3	Brøndby IF	45
4	FC Midtjylland	43
4	Rosenborg	30
5	AGF	29
6	Randers FC	26
7	AC Horsens	21
8	Vejle	21
9	FC Nordsjælland	19
10	SønderjyskE	19
11	AaB	19
12	Esbjerg fB	14

UEFA Cup group stage secured

We're through but it wasn't particularly pretty. I'm not going to elaborate on it, but there's a short review at UEFA.com - "Star attractions make it to the draw" - and I did type in some player grades at the footbo.com match page. Good luck to FC Moscow in the future.

Here's a list of possible group stage opponents, one team from each seeding pot: 1) AC Milan, Sevilla, Valencia, Benfica, Schalke 04, CSKA Moscow, Tottenham Hotspur, Hamburger SV; 2) VfB Stuttgart, Ajax, Olympiakos Piraeus, Deportivo La Coruña, Club Brugg, Spartak Moscow, Paris Saint-Germain, Heerenveen; 3) Rosenborg BK, Udinese, Feyenoord, Sporting Braga, Slavia Praha, Manchester City, Galatasaray, Sampdoria; 5) AS Saint-Étienne, VfL Wolfsburg, Standard Liège, FC Twente Enschede, NEC Nijmegen, Metalist Kharkiv, Lech Poznan, MSK Zilina (c/p from kassiesa.com, should probably double check it).