It’s really not easy to break the confidence of this Danish national football team. Not even France’s exceptional striker Kylian Mbappé managed to do that with his winning goal shortly before the end on Saturday evening (86th minute).
“We’re very optimistic before the next game. We’re approaching it very positively. We still have every chance,” said World Cup debutant Jesper Lindström from Eintracht Frankfurt after the late 2-1 (0-0) defeat against Defending champion France.
The Danes are confident
The bare facts say: The secret favorite Denmark has only one point after two World Cup games in Qatar and now has to win its third group game against Australia (Wednesday, 2:00 p.m. / ZDF and Magenta TV) in order not to to fly home after the preliminary round.
The Danish point of view is more: “Last year we didn’t have a point after two games at the European Championships and we had to win. It’s still in our own hands,” said national coach Kasper Hjulmand.
The Danes’ confidence is mainly based on the fact that they put in a much better performance on Saturday night than they did in the disappointing 0-0 start against Tunisia. For an hour, France’s world-class attack was kept as far away from their own goal as possible. And even when Mbappé scored for the first time in the 61st minute, the EM semi-finalist came back again thanks to Andreas Christensen’s equalization (68th). “That was a very good performance against a first-class team,” said defender Joachim Andersen.
Pressure has been a relative thing for these Danish players since they saw their main man, Christian Eriksen, suffer cardiac arrest during the first EURO match against Finland last year. Since overcoming this shock, the team has rushed from success to success: semi-finals at the European Championship tournament, nine wins in ten World Cup qualifiers, two successes against world champions France in the Nations League.
“We want to continue to close the gap to the best teams in Europe and the world,” said Hjulmand. That’s why progressing at this World Cup is so important.
Key players are out
However, he has two problems before the Australia game: After the World Cup exit of former Dortmund player Thomas Delaney, captain Simon Kjaer, a second key player, injured his thigh. “We don’t know yet if he can play against Australia,” said the coach. And his squad does not yet have two equal players for really every position.
The center forward position remains a weak point compared to defense and midfield. Kasper Dolberg, Andreas Cornelius, Martin Braithwaite – in four World Cup halves, three central attackers have been used so far, without one of them having impressed. Perhaps the preliminary round final against Australia is a chance for Jonas Wind from Wolfsburg.