Man City, beware: Copenhagen are Champions League upset experts

A little over four months ago, a dejected and disgruntled Manchester United team trudged off the field at FC Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium having lost 4-3 to the Danish club in their UEFA Champions League group game. The home crowd was delighted, euphoric, but maybe not all that surprised. A fair few of them had, after all, seen this happen before.

Back in 2006, the club also known as FCK had qualified for the Champions League group stage for the first time in their history, and in just their second-ever home game they beat a Manchester United side that included Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. In charge of the team that night was Ståle Solbakken, who believes that early success set the tone for the years that followed.

“When we beat Manchester United 1-0, it became the start of what we called the ‘European nights’ at Parken,” Solbakken tells ESPN. “I think that the atmosphere that you have at Parken, during these games, has become self-reinforcing. So regardless of the team you’re facing, you have a belief that the crowd and the atmosphere and everyone will help you through it.”

Over the years, the Copenhagen fans have become quite used to seeing players from the European elite leave Parken unhappy. Now, with reigning European champions Manchester City coming to town on Tuesday for the first leg of their round-of-16 tie, the Danes will be aiming to pull off their greatest feat yet: Stopping Pep Guardiola’s sky-blue winning machine. They’ll be written off by many, but FC Copenhagen’s European record at home is formidable. They’ve played 18 games at Parken in the Champions League in their history, and they’ve only lost two of them.

With the Champions League increasingly dominated by a handful of mega-wealthy clubs, FC Copenhagen are something of a throwback, a holdout from a time when European football was different. The Danes simply will not stop being a nuisance to any glamorous opponent UEFA throws in their path.