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Ajax happy with next UEFA Cup opponent: FC Copenhagen


	FC København

28 September: While the team was in the air, on a plane from Cyprus to Amsterdam, the draw for the second round of the UEFA Cup took place in Nyon, Switzerland. Ajax was paired with Danish champions, FC København, internationally known as FC Copenhagen. For the first leg, Ajax is due in Denmark's impressive national stadium, Parken (capacity 40,000), on Thursday 18 October. The second leg in the Amsterdam ArenA will be played two weeks later, on Thursday 01 November.

FC Copenhagen - nicknamed 'FCK' or 'The Lions' in Denmark - seems to be an opponent Ajax can be satisfied with: after the UEFA secretary had divided the 24 'unseeded' clubs into four groups, the six remaining teams Ajax could face, also included Dinamo Moscow (Russia), Príbram (Czech Republic), Wisla Krakow (Poland) and Litex (Bulgaria). Long trips to shadowy clubs Eastern European clubs are usually not very popular with football players. FC Copenhagen, currently on a disappointing 7th position in the Danish SAS League, seems to be a more attractive side to play, if only because the club - in fact, the whole of Denmark - has a reputation for playing attractive football.

A mutual focus on skill and offense is the reason why there's a special bond between Ajax and Denmark: no other country saw so many of its players wear the red and white of Ajax. S¢ren Lerby, Jesper Olsen and more recently the Laudrup brothers and Jesper Gr¢nkjær are only a few examples - and let's not forget unlucky Ole Tobiasen, still very much an Ajacied. He played for both Ajax and FC Copenhagen - and so did Brian Laudrup.

However, the Amsterdammers never played a Danish club in a European Cup tournament. The first and only time FC Copenhagen and Ajax played each other, was during Ajax' Danish summer tour of 1998, under Danish coach Morten Olsen. The friendly game against 'FCK' was won, 2-4. The Ajax goals were scored by Arveladze, Ole Tobiasen, Giorgi Kinkladze and Benni McCarthy; Peter Nielsen and Kenneth Jensen scored for FCK. The second game of the short Denmark tour was lost by the same score, against AaB Aalborg.

Ajax and Copenhagen clubs share an 'ancient' history as well: on 22 and 24 June of 1919, Ajax played two friendly away games at a club named Copenhagen (not FC Copenhagen). Both games were lost, 3-2 and 3-1, respectively. A friendly home game against KB, in November of 1947, was won, 4-3. That club, 'K¢benhavn Boldklub', was one of the two legendary Danish clubs involved in the merger which marked the birth of FC Copenhagen.

FC Copenhagen, playing their home games in all white, is a young club. It was founded in 1992 as a fusion of two illustrious Copenhagen sides: B 1903 (7 Danish titles) and BK (15 Danish titles and the oldest football club on mainland Europe, founded 1876). Both clubs still exist as amateur clubs, developing talent for FCK. The 1992 merger was supposed to lift new-born FC Copenhagen to the level of city rivals such as Br¢ndby IF and AB. The club won the Danish national title in its first season (1993), but then slowly slipped away from the top. After that, a listing on the stock exchange (1997) and the purchase of the FCK home ground and national stadium, Parken (formerly Idraetsparken), brought its second Danish championship (2001), under supervision of English manager Roy Hodgson, who then left for Udinese, Italy.

Like Ajax, FC Copenhagen started this season's European campaign in the preliminary rounds of the Champions League, in which Torpedo Kutaisi from Georgia was beaten (1-1, 3-1), before Italian giants Lazio Roma closed the door to the Champions League for the Danes: a 2-1 win at Parken was wiped out by a 4-1 stumble in Rome. The first round of the UEFA Cup then brought them to Yugoslavija: FK Obilic was beaten 2-0 at Parken. The second leg at Belgrade ended in a 2-2 draw. Striker Heine Fernandez, FCK's key striker, stood out by scoring no less than six European goals in those three rounds. His team-mate Sibusio Zuma added three. Both players also scored three goals in the Danish SAS league, more than 50% of the team's domestic production. (MP)

Reaction: Co Adriaanse

"This is a good draw. Dynamo Moscow and Rapid Vienna were also in our group. Considering that, I think we could have had a worse draw. (…) Copenhagen is close to Holland, the climate is the same and we're also familiar with their football culture. Which is very much like the Dutch. Our scout, John Steen Olsen, lives in Copenhagen and can provide us with all the information we need. Next weekend, we will take a look ourselves. They are playing in a 4-4- 2 formation and they have a very good South-African striker. However, it does strike me they concede a goal in almost every game." (Source: Ajax.nl)