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Midtjylland favourites against Hibs

Midtjylland favourites against Hibs

BBC News22-07-2025
Hibs will head to Denmark on Thursday as underdogs given their relative recent European results.The Leith side have failed in six attempts to progress through the qualifiers in the last 15 years, although they did come closest two years ago until Aston Villa ended their dream with an 8-0 aggregate thrashing in the Conference League play-offs.Hosts Midtjylland, meanwhile, navigated two rounds before losing to Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League play-offs last season - then finished 20th in Europa League, qualifying for the play-off round, where they lost to Real Sociedad.That explains why the Danes are ranked 71st in Europe - 166 places above Hibs.Having lost 7-3 on aggregate to Rangers in Europa League qualifying in 2019, their improvement was such that they knocked Celtic out of the Champions League qualifying, 3-2 on aggregate, two years later.Thomas Thomasberg is in his second spell as head coach and has gathered together a squad with international experience from around the world.Up front he has Poland's Adam Buksa, South Korea's Cho Gue-sung and Guinea-Bissau's Franculino Dju, who is reportedly of interest to several Premier League clubs.Zambia's Edward Chilufya is joined in midfield by Denil Castillo, who has just made his Ecuador debut, while another 21-year-old, winger Darío Osorio, plays for Chile and centre-back Lee Han-beom recently debuted for South Korea.Although Kevin Mbabu did not make it even to Rangers' bench on loan from Newcastle United in 2015, the 30-year-old right-back has since played for Young Boys, Wolfsburg and Fulham while earning 25 caps for Switzerland.Midtjylland are captained by former Brentford centre-back Mads Bech Sorensen, while veteran goalkeeper Jonas Lossl also played for the Premier League club, as well as Huddersfield Town and Everton.Like Rangers, David Gray's Hibs have an added incentive to remain in their current competition, with next opponents Fredrikstad of Norway having limited European pedigree.Drop to the Conference League and they will face one of two sides who finished runners-up in their domestic league - Oleksandriya of Ukraine or Red Star Belgrade of Serbia.Read the full European round up
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