RANGERS are in friendly action tonight against FC Copenhagen and you can read some interesting Fast Facts from tonight's matchday programme here ahead of the game tonight.
Rangers have met FC Copenhagen on four previous occasions, the first two matches being pre-season friendlies in the Danish capital in July 1996 and July 2001, with the final two contests taking place in the qualifying round for the Champions League in August 2003. Both sides have won once, the Danes winning the first friendly meeting with Rangers’ victory coming in the final match to date, a 2-1 win at the Parken Stadion in the second leg of the Champions League qualifying round in 2003, thanks to goals from Mikel Arteta and Shota Arveladze.
Although FC Copenhagen was founded on 1 July 1992, Rangers have also previously played one of two teams that came together to create the present-day club. B1903 Copenhagen and KB Copenhagen came together to create FC Copenhagen in 1992 with Rangers playing B1903 on a tour of Denmark, more than 70 years earlier, in June 1921, winning 2-1 thanks to an own goal and a strike from Andy Cunningham.
Rangers have met Danish opposition - made up of club sides, select sides and representative teams - on 30 occasions in friendly games, dating back to their first encounters with a Denmark select team in June 1911. All but one of these encounters have taken place in Denmark, with Rangers’ record currently standing at 18 victories, three defeats and nine matches drawn. Over the course of these fixtures, the Light Blues have scored 67 goals and have conceded 33.
The only previous friendly fixture played at Ibrox against Danish opponents took place on 14 August 1950 with Akademisk Boldklub, commonly known as AB, as the visitors. Having already played AB in Copenhagen in May of the same year and losing 2-1, Rangers, who had already beaten Morton in the League Cup at Cappielow two days earlier, played their first home match of the season, reversing the scoreline suffered in the earlier match, with a 2-1 victory over the Danes thanks to goals from Billy Findlay and Eddie Rutherford
There have been five players who have played for both Rangers and Copenhagen, most notably Brian Laudrup, who made 12 league appearances for Copenhagen in 1999, having enjoyed great success with Rangers between 1994 and 1998, collecting three league titles, one League Cup and one Scottish Cup, along with numerous Player of the Year awards and scoring the goal which clinched ‘Nine in a Row’. Of the other four, three were goalkeepers, namely Antti Niemi,Thomas Myhre and Jesper Christiansen while Libor Sionko was the last of the five to play for Rangers, moving to Copenhagen in the summer of 2007.
Other than the Champions League qualifier between the clubs in 2003, Rangers have met four other Danish sides in European competition, beating Lyngby (1992), Herfolge (2000) and Midtjylland (2019) home and away over two legs and recording a win and a draw against Brondby in the Europa League group stage in 2021.
The Light Blues are back in action at Ibrox against Copenhagen tonight and you can be there to back the team by picking up a ticket HERE.
If you're coming to the game, don't forget that you can pick up a matchday programme from the game from all the usual outlets at Ibrox!