Benfica to face København In Champions League Qualifiers
By: Greg | August 8th, 2007
FC Copenhagen (København to you breakfast pastries) defeated Israeli side Beitar Jerusalem FC 2-1 on aggregate to win the right to face Benfica in the third and final qualifying stage of the Champions League. Whomever wins the ties will be placed, along with fifteen other qualifying teams and the sixteen automatic berths into a pool to form the groups for the next stage.
I unfortunately don’t know much about FC Copenhagen to comment intelligently on them. They finished first in the Danish Superliga last year and have a few familiar names such as Marcus Allbäck and Jesper Grønkjær.
Copenhagen were in a group with Celtic, Manchester United, and Benfica last year. They split 0-3 and 1-0 vs Manchester United. Against Benfica they tied 0-0 and lost 3-1 on a pair of Fabrizio Miccoli strikes. Celtic gave away the last game of the league 3-1 to them (they had already qualified) and they lost 0-1 in the first tie. ManU and Celtic went through while Benfica qualified for the UEFA Cup. Based on the results, one can see that Copenhagen were able to hold their own. Based the matches against Benfica I did manage to catch last year I don’t think a Simao and Miccoli-less Portuguese side should take Copenhagen lightly at all.
We’ll know by the end of the month if we can expect Benfica to make it three Portuguese sides in the next round or if Porto and Sporting will be carrying the flag themselves for Portuguese football through the group stages.
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