Article about the cup match on Wednesday
AB meets AGF in the cup – the 1999 victory brings back memories A cup battle between two traditional clubs is in store when 3F Superliga team AGF travel to Gladsaxe Stadium to face AB from the 2nd division in the third round of the cup. The AB players watched intently as the teams were pulled out of the bowl, and when AGF emerged, there was a big cheer. Frederik Ellegaard Christensen, who is one of the profiles on the AB team, says to bold.dk that the team is looking forward to crossing swords with the Aarhus club. “It’s going to be great. We saw the draw, and we were happy that it was AGF, because they’re a big team in Denmark. We’re really looking forward to it with hopefully a lot of fans who can help us advance in the cup,” says Frederik Ellegaard Christensen to bold.dk. Must be a victory – Anything can happen in the cup, it is often said, as it is the smaller teams’ chance to take on the favorite teams. The 22-year-old striker is not focused on doing well against AGF. Instead, the AB-profile is determined to win, and he believes it can happen: “I kind of live by the motto that I shouldn’t tease anyone. I approach every match as if I’m the best. It may sound a bit too optimistic, but when I go into every game, I think it has to be a win and I have to be better than the opponent I’m facing, so I believe 100 percent that we can advance in the cup. – We’ve shown in the past that we’ve been good in the cup when we’ve knocked out Viborg and Helsingør, and we’ve played close with AaB and Esbjerg. Will threaten AGF with speed AB consists of many young players, and there is often a lot of speed when the 1999 cup winner enters Gladsaxe Stadium. Christensen knows that AB will probably struggle to dominate in the cup tie against AGF, but he hopes that the team’s high tempo can help surprise AGF.
– We’re a very close-knit team, as many of us have come up from the youth department, so we know each other’s style of play and know where to play each other to make us good. – We have some speed, and it’s clear that AGF is a really good team, so we get pressed down in some situations. However, we are also good in the counter phase, so I think we have a broad spectrum. We can be good on the ball, but we can also settle down,” says Frederik Ellegaard Christensen to bold.dk. Martin Albrechtsen: A huge experience to win the cup AB has won the cup once, and that was in 1999 when they beat AaB 2-1 in the final. Later Superliga pro Martin Albrechtsen was part of that final. The experienced defender tells bold.dk that it was a wild day for him. – “It’s a huge day. It’s a day you look forward to for weeks after qualifying, says Martin Albrechtsen to bold.dk.Photo: Ritzau/Scanpix
What was it like for you to be involved in a cup final? It was one of my first big matches that I had. It was also big for me, and the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized how big it is and was to be in a cup final. – It was huge that AB finally got a title, but also just the whole setup in Parken, where all the focus was on two teams. There was food after the match, speeches and DBU was there. There were a lot of spectators, so it was a huge experience and something I wouldn’t have been without. The defender remembers that AB took the tournament more and more seriously the more it came to a head: “When you start the cup tournament, you take it as it comes, and you try to get through the first rounds, and then you think that there are only three or four games left before you reach the final – it’s the shortest way to Europe. Then you start to take it more seriously, because then it’s the quarterfinals, the semifinals and the final,” says Martin Albrechtsen to bold.dk. The match between AB and AGF will kick off on Wednesday, October 12 at 18:00 at Gladsaxe Stadium, and time will tell if the Gladsaxe club can get one step closer to repeating their 1999 cup triumph.
