FC Nordsjælland

Football Club Nordsjælland, commonly known as FC Nordsjælland, Nordsjælland () or FCN, is a professional Danish football team from the North Zealand town of Farum. Founded as ''Farum Boldklub'' from the merger of the town's two football clubs Farum IK and Stavnsholt BK in 1991, the club changed its name to FC Nordsjælland in 2003.

FCN plays in the Danish Superliga, winning its first medal in the 2002–03 season, taking third place. Since then, the ''Wild Tigers'' have made four appearances in Europe under both the old UEFA Cup format in 2003–04, 2008–09 and in the UEFA Europa League during the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. In 2010, the club won its first Danish Cup and successfully defended it the following year in 2011, beating Midtjylland in both finals. FCN won the 2011–12 Danish Superliga in May 2012 which qualified the team to participate in the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League.

Nordsjælland plays its home matches at Right to Dream Park, which has a capacity of 10,100 of which 9,800 seating and 300 standing spectators.

History

Farum BK (1991–2003)

Established on 1 January 1991 from the merger of two football clubs, Farum Idræts Klub (formed in 1910) and Stavnsholt Boldklub af 1974, both from the former Farum municipality (now consolidated with Værløse as the Furesø municipality), Farum BK would become one of the few successful mergers in Danish football, but not without controversy. The club was an initiative of Farum residents including mayor Peter Brixtofte, who took a personal interest in the club by arranging sponsorship. The club kit colours became a combination of the two merged clubs, the red and white of Stavnsholt with the yellow and blue of F.I.K. combined into a kit with yellow and red striped shirts and dark blue shorts and socks, which is still used in some form to this day. Colours were not the only thing the newly formed club inherited, as Thomas Andreasen who had been with Stavnsholt BK was carried over into the new Farum squad, Andreasen would go on to make a record 295 appearances, playing from the Denmark Series all the way to the Danish Superliga, until his departure from the club in 2007.

Farum BK was placed in the second group of the Denmark Series, the fourth tier in the Danish football pyramid, though it gained promotion to the first group after the club's maiden season. Jørgen Andersen, a former goalkeeper for Hvidovre, took over as the club's first head coach in 1992. The club stayed in the Denmark Series first group for six years. Under the guidance of manager Jørgen Tideman, who took over in 1994, Farum qualified for promotion into the 2nd Division in the 1997–98 season and subsequently turned professional for the first time in club history.

Farum's first full season as a professional club was a fruitful one, edging out Aalborg Chang and Skive by one point, gaining promotion for the second time in two years into the 1st Division. The club's meteoric rise was slowed at first with the new challenge of playing in the Danish second tier, though it was not stopped however, ending the 1999–2000 campaign with a respectable eighth-place finish, winning the same number of games as it lost. Farum, however, remained unable to make any sort of impact in the Danish Cup, having lost in the first round for the previous three years since making its debut in the tournament in the 1997–98 season. The following year saw some progression in both the league and cup, improving on the previous year's finish by finishing fifth, three spots and nine points behind second-placed promotion winners Vejle, as well as breaking out of the first round of the Danish Cup to eventually fall to Fremad Amager in the third round following a 2–1 loss.

With the 2001–02 season, unconventional coach Christian Andersen was brought in to manage the team, building on the foothold the club had gained in the 1st Division. Jeppe Tengbjerg played a pivotal role, brought in from B.93 the previous year. He scored 16 goals, becoming Farum's top goalscorer of the season and third overall in the league. The team went on to earn promotion into the Superliga after finishing in second place, 11 points clear of third-placed Sønderjylland, one point behind first-place winners Køge, scoring a team total of 69 goals, the highest in the division that season, and losing only four games.

Farum's 2002–03 appearance in the top flight of Danish football would be its first and last under the Farum BK name. It ended the season in third place, qualifying for the UEFA Cup for the first time in its history. The club's achievement, however, was overshadowed by the scandal involving Peter Brixtofte, who had arranged for the municipality to deliberately overpay for welfare services bought from private companies that in return would sponsor the Farum football team. Brixtofte was forced to step down as chairman and the club came close to bankruptcy.

FC Nordsjælland (2003–present)

In March 2003, Farum BK was bought by AKP Holding, the holdings company of local businessman Allan K. Pedersen, and in an effort to distance the club from the Brixtofte scandal, Farum BK was re-branded as FC Nordsjælland, named after the North Zealand (Danish: Nordsjælland) region to clarify the club was to represent both the region as well as the town in which the club is based. To reinforce the status as a regional team, a network of local football clubs from the surrounding area was created, consisting of around 66 teams, with the aim to highlight young talent in the region and bring it to national attention via FC Nordsjælland. The network is known as Fodbold Samarbejde Nordsjælland (FSN).

The club's second year in the Superliga, first as Nordsjælland, struggled to improve on the previous year's outing. With its worst goal difference since turning professional, not one FCN player ended in the top ten goal scorers, fighting to avoid relegation for most of the season, ending the campaign in ninth place. The ''Wild Tiger'' fans, however, were rewarded with European football with the club's first appearance in the UEFA Cup; it beat Armenian team Shirak 6–0 on aggregate in the qualifying round, but were eliminated in the first round by Greek team Panionios. Christian Andersen was sacked at the end of the 2003–04 season, replaced by Johnny Petersen as head coach.

The following two years under Johnny Petersen were spent avoiding relegation, with no success to speak of in either the Superliga or Danish Cup. Petersen's reign was not completely amiss, as he was noted for creating a good young team and the emergence of players Mads Junker and Anders Due. For the 2006–07 season, Morten Wieghorst was promoted from assistant to head coach, a position the former Celtic player would retain for five years.

Wieghorst's first dilemma in charge of FCN was to fill the gap left by top scorer Mads Junker, sale to Dutch side Vitesse the previous winter. Morten Nordstrand came in on a free from nearby Lyngby after scoring 29 goals in the 1st Division that previous season. Nordstrand would go on to make an instant impact, topping the goal scorers charts for the first half of the 2006–07 season and earning himself a call up to the Denmark national team. Helping the club to a fifth-place finish, Nordstrand ended the season with 18 goals after appearing in every league match that season. Danish champions Copenhagen purchased the player at the end of the season for a then record 15 million Danish kroner, becoming the largest transfer fee ever paid for a player between two Danish clubs.

With lower-than-average attendance and issues still arising from the Brixtofte scandal, chairman Allan Kim Pedersen confirmed there had been discussions to move the club north to Hillerød and basketball. The move, however, never materialized.

Nordsjælland would find itself in a similar position the following season, again having sold its star striker Martin Bernburg to Copenhagen. The team only managed a ninth-place finish, yet qualified for the UEFA Cup for the second time via the UEFA Respect Fair Play rankings. 2008–09 would become a good year for the ''Wild Tigers'' in terms of cup competitions, making it to the quarter-finals in the Danish Cup for the second time in its history, and improving on its previous European outing with wins over TVMK Tallinn and Queen of the South, though later being knocked out by Greek side Olympiacos 0–7 aggregate.

In October 2008, Allan K. Pedersen sold FC Nordsjælland from AKP Holding to himself for a reported 500,000 Danish kroner, shortly before his holding company went bankrupt, a price Pedersen, however, denies. Following an investigation from his creditors, it was found that the sale was forced through without the bank's consent, and that the value for which the club was sold was too low, which ultimate reduced the finances the creators received for the sale. FCN was reevaluated to be worth 35 million kroner at the time of sale. The case has gone to the Supreme Court and is yet to be resolved; it speculated that it could take one-to-four years.

The 2009–10 season saw Nordsjælland lift its first trophy, the Danish Cup. FCN was not drawn against another Superliga team until the quarter-final meeting with Silkeborg