Things to know about Midtjylland
Last season: 4th
Qualified through: League position
Coach: Glen Riddersholm (who except for a short break was there even before the club was there, in 1995 he started coaching Ikast’s youth team, before the merger created Midtjylland)
Star:
Links to Örebro: Ken Fagerberg and Örebro starlet at the time Kristoffer Näfver played one match together in the Swedish U 21 national team in 2008. Näfver was then a regular (he was replaced by Bajrami, now a starter in the real national team. Poor Näfver plays third tier football in Sweden).
Comment: A result of one of few successful football megers in 199. Midtjylland was the first Danish team to invest in a football academy for young players, French style (copying Nantes). Which is honourable in one way, but on the other morally borderline; the club has received a lot of domestic criticism for exploiting young players and for luring them to the club at a too young an age. Most famous is the example with players from the team’s Nigerian satellite club Ebedei. But the young academy is also full of success stories such as Simon Kjaer, and today’s squad is full of talented 22-year olds such as keeper Jonas Lössl, on the brink of the national team, defender Jesper Juelsgård Kristensen and Swedish striker Ken Fagerberg (whose career has taken a downturn). Behind them, the squad is full of even younger talents such as Albaek. But they also have merited players such as defender Martin Albrechtsen, winger Borring and midfielder Jakob Poulsen.
This is how we beat them: Need to respect. The Danish league is raising on the ranking and although this is much thanks to FC Copenhagen, Midtjylland was one of two teams to beat FCK last season. Midtjylland has also performed decently at European level, constantly beating the more beatable opponents and only losing to bigger teams (Sporting Lisbon, Anderlecht, CSKA Moscow, Lokomotiv Moscow and Manchester City). But they have lost most of their goal scoring abilities since last year’s two best scorers have left the team. Frank Kristensen left already in January, after 104 goals for the club, and Thygesen went to Bröndby this summer. The club is now looking at Esbjerg’s Dutch striker Tim Janssen, which could be a good match.
Chance of Örebro winning: 45%
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