Dreadful Danes just couldn’t handle the high expectations

LESS than 18 months after reaching the semi-finals of the Euros, Denmark is reflecting on a disastrous World Cup for our national team. Out in the first round. Bottom of our group. Beaten by Australia. And with our only goal scored by a centre-back, Andreas Christensen. Danish fans are in a state of shock. To be honest, they feel embarrassed. What Denmark did in this tournament was unrecognisable. You can look for reasons. And maybe find a few. One might be to do with handling expectation. The manager, Kasper Hjulmand, came out before the squad left for Qatar and said they dreamed big and wanted to win something. Obviously, the media and fans back here took it as: ‘Okay, we are going to try and win the World Cup.’ Perhaps that pressure and expectation level was too much. I was fortunate to be around when Denmark did very well — winning Euro 92, winning the Confederations Cup and reaching the quarter-final of the World Cup — but we were never truly expected to come on top in these tournaments. This time, it felt a bit different. Another thing was that Hjulmand took a squad with a number of players not featuring regularly for their clubs. Especially in attack. Kasper Dolberg, Mikkel Damsgaard — who’s been injured — and Andreas Cornelius were all in that bracket. Denmark struggled to create anything, even with Premier League midfield regulars in Christian Eriksen and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. They didn’t perform at all. A less tangible thing has been all the talk about Qatar and the OneLove armband. The FA and the players were heavily criticised here for not wearing it after FIFA threatened to issue bookings. Lots of things came together to create what’s being regarded as the worst World Cup in Danish history. It’s been a bit of wake-up call after so much success in recent years. If Denmark is not playing with its best players at 100 per cent fitness, then we are not as good as we thought.