Monday, July 13, 2009

Agurketid in Århus

In Danish "Agurketid" means "cucumber time", to denote a period with almost nothing in the news. I guess these days are football-agurketid for me. Sure there are matches in the Libertadores, first round CL qualifiers, the gold cup, as well as numerous rumours about transfers (although most are about Real Madrid), but without some of my favourite leagues there is not much to talk about. Of course, this has been good for making some research on some lists I plan to do: top-10 beers to drink while watching football, top-50 World Cup goals, top-20 greatest World Cup matches.
As I am spending some days in Århus, and today I ran by Århus Stadium, I thought I would look a bit into the major football team of Århus, AGF. Although they have traditionally been one of the major teams in Danish football with five Danish Championships and nine Danish Cup titles, as well as the record of 65 seasons in the Danish top league. In spite of this, the club has had disappointingly bad results ever since 1996, when they finished second in the league and won the Cup.
This is of course hardly satifactory for a team with strong traditions and the second city of Denmark, and there have been investments in new players as well as in the new coach Erik Rasmussen, who had a succesful run as coach in FC Midtjylland. Although ending only 6th last season, I think most observers of Danish football would rank them as outsiders to do well, with players such as Jakob Poulsen, Peter Graulund, Ulrik Lindkvist, as well as some foreigners, including Englishman Mark Howard, the US national team player Benny Feilhaber.
However, personally I think their team is too narrow, I hardly believe they will make it beyond 6th place next season.
Anyway, I must have been really bored to start looking up things about AGF!

3 comments:

Stig said...

Gaab...

El Erik said...

nå ja, men endelig fik man da en kommentar fra dig! Hvad så - husker du EEN ENESTE LYNGBY KAMP!?!?

El Erik said...

I already knew that I had great karma on football teams, and seems I have had it again.
After five rounds of the Danish Superleague, AGF is undefeated and leading the league, and were looking particularly impressive after defeating defending champions of FC Copenhagen 1-0 in Copenhagen!
It is early in the season, but AGF is looking strong, although it will take many more visit of me to Århus for them to become champions!