PREVIEW: AIK 65 STRØBY - FC NORDSJæLLAND David Smith - Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Resigned to the bench in recent league play, Michael Parkhurst should see Danish Cup action for Nordsjælland as they take on seventh-division minnows AIK 65 Strøby on Wednesday night in Køge.
While their league campaign has fallen off the wheels over the past two months, the Wild Tigers are heavy favorites to advance to the quarterfinals of the Danish Cup as they had the good fortune of drawing the lowest ranked team left in the competition.
By way of inspired play and the luck of avoiding any upper division teams in the competition's first three rounds, AIK have done the unthinkable for a team in Denmark's seventh tier and advanced to the final 16 - only the third time in the history of the Danish Cup a team so low on the totem has survived this late.
The David versus Goliath nature of the game has thrown a pair of technical problems into the mix, ultimately leading to the game being played one week earlier than scheduled and on neutral ground.
With their season having already concluded over the previous weekend, AIK team officials requested the game to be moved forward by one week to allow the players a timely departure for holidays.
In addition, as AIK's home ground in the Stevns Municipality is not accustomed to games of such national attention, the game itself was moved a short drive northwest to Superliga team Køge's SEAS-NVE Park, also considerably closer to Nordsjælland's home of Farum.
While an upset by AIK can be considered an astronomically unlikely scenario, Nordsjælland coach Morten Wieghorst is taking no risk and sending a squad with nearly all of his first teamers.
Only a trio of starters are missing as compared to the weekend's lineup; goalkeeper Nenad Novakovic, midfielder Stephan Petersen, and central defender Benjamin Kibebe, whose absence will likely give Parkhurst his first start in more than one month.
The game should also see the first Nordsjælland start for former South African captain and FC Copenhagen legend Sibusiso Zuma, who joined the team in the previous week as he attempts to put himself back in the running for a place in the 2010 World Cup hosted by his home country.
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