The Danish team has made it to the World Cup after a big gap, and is touted to do well in the tournament. They have all the potential to move to the second round of the tournament, or perhaps even make it to the quarterfinals stages. In the qualifying group, they emerged on the top ahead of Portugal and Sweden, which was a major boost to the team. They were up against another team on top of their respective group, the ‘Flying Dutchmen’, Netherlands. This match was actually favouring the Dutch side, but as the Danish side are famous for their resilient defending, the outcome could not be predicted beforehand.
The first shock came before the match, when Arsenal’s Nicholas Bendtner was given a starting position, despite the coach’s statement that he was injured. Therefore, although he started the match, he showed signs of weakness, and he missed the biggest chance of the first half, when a cross was fed to him. Instead of capitalizing on the chance, he looked surprised and headed it wide. Thomas Enevoldsen was the real playmaker for the team, but he showed a lack of creativity.
The only positive outcome from the game was that the Danish side showed a solid defence and managed to keep the attacks of the Dutch at bay. In the first half, the Danish defenders were the ones doing the best job on the pitch. This state of affairs, however, did not last long, as Denmark conceded a goal, an own-goal by Simon Poulsen. This was a lucky break for the Dutch, as the ball was headed away for a corner but it deflected in after hitting Agger. Their tempo was disrupted and the team showed no signs of a comeback. The match was wrapped up in the 85th minute by Dirk Kuyt, when he scored the second goal for the Dutch side.
The Danish team, however, showed some good signs as well. Their keeper Thomas Sorensen, especially, played a good game and defended his goalpost in good fashion. He kept the Dutch from scoring at different occasions. The defence also showed promise, making it extremely hard for the Dutch players to win the crosses in the air. This also obliterated the Dutch team’s threat on the set pieces.
The problem came when the team needed to attack. The obvious tactics by the coach were to earn a draw from the match, and he was well set until the unfortunate own-goal moment. The attack lacked any sort of creativity. The major player in the Danish side to score was Bendtner, and he showed a real lack of performance. Nicholas Bendtner has not been performing at all for his club Arsenal, and he did not perform at all this time either. He missed the one real great chance of scoring in the match, and showed an overall lack of commitment. Although one could always feel that a goal was never coming from the Danish side, fans still hoped that their players would perform well and show some vigour, especially when they were one goal down. The lack of quality in the attack is the only problem that would trouble the advancement of the Danish side into the next round.
The Danish Dynamite will now face the challenge of Japan and Cameron in order to earn a spot in the next round. Although they might seem clear favourites, other teams have a tendency to perform well in the big tournament. It is very hard to see the goals coming from the Denmark players, but they should adopt a strategy of scoring atleast one goal, and then defending their way through the rest of the match. This would be the only hope for them. However, experts believe that the second position in this group is still up for grabs, and draws would do no good to any team.
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