Danes in the doldrums

By Peter Bruun

While Denmark are a potent force in international football, the Superliga is not one of Europe's footballing powerhouses. The Danish domestic league is rated as the 22nd strongest in Europe, with local clubs rarely able to afford to keep their best players.

Gloomy prognosis
For Michael Laudrup, coach of league leaders Brøndby IF and Denmark's greatest ever footballer, big changes are needed in Danish football, or "the Superliga will always be a 'development league', and we will have to be content with a team in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League once every six or eight years".

Increased competition
Not everyone is as pessimistic as Laudrup. Brøndby director Per Bjerregaard said: "We have not become weaker - the other leagues have become stronger, and that is what we have to do." He has seen positive signs in the way that the Superliga's smaller sides are making more and more signings in an attempt to keep pace with the established giants.

European coup
Aside from Brøndby, Aalborg BK are the only Danish club ever to have made it to the group stages of the Champions League, and last season they were the only Danish side to qualify for the first round proper of the major UEFA tournaments, reaching the first round of the UEFA Cup.

Dual targets
AaB sporting director Lynge Jacobsen wants Danish sides to focus more on youth development to kickstart an upturn in the Superliga's fortunes. "The 10-12-year-olds should have just as good coaches as the Under-18 players have. Then we have to extend the season, and this can only be done with more artificial turf."

No contest
However, Jacobsen is not confident that Danish clubs will ever be able to compete financially with Europe's biggest. "When we were sent out of the UEFA Cup by [AJ] Auxerre last year, we were up against a team with ten times our budget," he told uefa.com. "We can't match that - at least not in my lifetime!"

Financial weakness
He added: "I think it is realistic to aim for the best Danish teams being ranked just below the best 20 teams in Europe. However, we can never keep the best players here. We have just had Rasmus Würtz nominated for the national team. That may very well mean that we will get an offer for him we cannot refuse - and then we will have to create a new Würtz!"

Immature culture
Coach Ove Pedersen has taken two teams into the UEFA Cup in recent seasons - firstly FC Midtjylland and more recently his current side Esbjerg fB. He thinks that the main barrier that prevents Danish football from reaching the level of other nations is naivety.

Odd decisions
"Apart from Brøndby and FC København, Danish clubs are not well enough organised," he told uefa.com. He cited the examples of a number of Danish sides selling their best players on the eve of the start of their European campaigns, saying: "They needed the money, of course, but that is just not the way we improve results!"

Rosenborg example
A lack of winter training facilities is also a problem for Pedersen. He said: "When we were in Norway to play Rosenborg [BK] in the Royal League this winter, we saw a club with an artificial pitch for matches, an indoor artificial grass pitch and two outdoor training grounds with heating!"

Long journey
For the moment, the Danes can only dream of such luxuries. Things are improving slowly, but as Pedersen concluded: "There is still a long way to go."