European campaign awaits
Another season of European football for F.C. Copenhagen will begin on July 17th. F.C. Copenhagen will try once again to reach the group stage of the UEFA Cup, but the road to the group stage is long, and will require success in quite some games.
This year Denmark has been given an extra spot in the UEFA Cup due to good results the last few years, and on top of that, Denmark has also won another extra spot via the UEFA Fair Play contest. All in all, Denmark will be represented by five teams in this years European tournaments; AaB (UEFA Champions League qualification) and then F.C. Copenhagen, FC Midtjylland, Brøndby IF and FC Nordsjælland (all four in the UEFA Cup).
F.C. Copenhagen will enter the tournament in the first round of qualification as a seeded team, and the team from the Danish capital is to be found in the “Northern region”, meaning F.C. Copenhagen are set to play one of the teams below:
- Vetra Vilnius – Lithuania
- Cork City – Ireland
- St. Patrick’s Athletic – Ireland
- IA Akranes – Iceland
- Flora Tallinn – Estonia
- TVMK Tallinn – Estonia
- Glentoran – Northern Ireland
- Cliftonville – Northern Ireland
- Bangor City – Wales
- The New Saints – Wales
- EB Streymur – Faroe Islands
- B36 Torshavn – Faroe Islands
- CS Grevenmacher – Luxembourg
- Racing Union Luxembourg – Luxembourg
The draw for the first round of qualification will take place on 1 July, and the 1st leg is to be played on July 17th, with the return leg to be played on July 31st.
F.C. Copenhagen’s chances to reach the UEFA Cup group stage looks reasonably and it seems likely that F.C. Copenhagen will be seeded all the way to the group stage. This means that teams like AC Milan, Sevilla FC, Valencia CF, CSKA Moscow, Tottenham Hotspurs and Ajax Amsterdam will be avoided in the final round of qualification, also known as the first round of the UEFA Cup. This does of course require that F.C. Copenhagen advances from both the first and second round of qualification...
