FC Copenhagen, which advanced to the Champions League playoffs, is in a class of its own in Nordic club football, writes Urheilu’s reporter Jussi Vainikka from Copenhagen.
Jussi Vainikka sports reporter
COPENHAGEN. Free beer for everyone!
The text flashed across the Parken Stadium video board as the final whistle blew in the Champions League football match between FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray on Tuesday evening.
You could have imagined that the great championship was decided when the players and supporters of FC Copenhagen celebrated the 1-0 victory and the next place in the Champions League in the stadium. Even the normally stony-faced player legend who commented on the match for the Danish TV channel by Michael Laudrup the corners of the mouth twisted into a broad smile.
In the Champions League, the advancement of a Nordic team to the playoff stage is so rare in modern football that it is worth celebrating. The club thanked its supporters with a free malt drink.
The fact that Manchester United was left licking their fingers in the same group makes it particularly tasty for the Danes, who are celebrating a frosty and recent achievement. FC Köpenhamina beat the mighty club from the Netherlands at home in November, took a point away from Bayern Munich and set themselves up for a further chance.
FC Copenhagen is the only Nordic club that has been able to advance from the first group of the Champions League to the second round in the 2000s. This happened in the fall of 2010 and now for the second time.
The Champions League has been played in its current form since 1992. In the 90s, only the Swedish IFK Göteborg and the Norwegian Rosenborg have both once been able to advance to the playoff stage.
One might think that Copenhagen’s success would inspire faith in other Nordic clubs as well, but the truth is different. In the light of the numbers, FC Copenhagen has grown over the years to a completely different scale compared to the top clubs in Sweden and Norway, not to mention Helsinki Football Club.
Transfermarkt website according to the Copenhagen players, the combined market value is a whopping 66 million euros. According to Transfermarkt, the most valuable teams in Sweden and Norway are Malmö (36 million) and Bodö/Glimt (37 million). HJK’s reading is 8.3 million.
It is telling that even though Copenhagen is a giant club in the Nordic countries, the combined market value of the players is the second lowest among the teams in this season’s Champions League. The statistic increases the significance of the place in the finals.
Money doesn’t directly win games, but the more money has been blamed on European football, the more unlikely Nordic success in the Champions League has become.
Even in the 70s and 80s, in the European Cup, the predecessor of the Champions League, especially Swedish clubs reaped success. Malmö even made it to the final in 1979 and IFK Göteborg to the semi-finals in the spring of 1986. And of course we should not forget the greatest achievement of Finnish club football, Lahti Kuusys’ quarter-final place in the European Cup in the same year 1986.
Now you can’t even dream of something similar in Finnish clubs in your wildest dreams. Even in Sweden and Norway, the limelight of the Champions League is getting further and further away, even though Malmö played in the group stage several times in the 2010s. The previous Norwegian club in the group stage of the Champions League was Rosenborg in 2007.
FC Copenhagen nets 9.6 million euros in prize money for reaching the playoffs on top of the already collected pot. Getting to the group stage brought just under 16 million euros, and every match won 2.8 million.
Yes, he offers beers to supporters with that money.