Can David become Goliath? What is next for Kasper Hjulmand’s Denmark?
On July 8th a jet touched down at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport, welcomed by water cannons, rabid airport staff, and everything short of a red carpet. It was a hero’s welcome for a team who had just stumbled at the second-to-last hurdle. However, despite the defeat, the squad emerged with smiles and a took-it-on-the-chin mood. As they walked to the terminal, where Kasper Hjulmand, Kasper Schmeichel, and Simon Kjaer were to give a short press conference, a member of airport staff shouted out “don’t worry about this one, we’ll settle for the world cup”.
Expectations are a difficult burden to bear in the world of football. It distracts players and coaches, it saps them of confidence, and it makes the simplest of tasks twice as hard. Expectations seep in from the outside world, through press conferences, players’ mobile phones, the fans in the ground, and family at home. They are impossible to escape. Therefore, it is rare to see a team reshape them in the face of adversity, and even more so to see a team wear their expectations like a crown. This is what Denmark seem to have done.
Going into the Euros, the expectation set for Denmark was to entertain and be the public’s light-hearted dark horse, a point of discussion for punters and patrons. After the tragic events of matchday one, that expectation dissolved, and the world failed to set new expectations for a team that had every good reason to crumble. Meanwhile, Hjulmand and his players got together and set a new expectation for themselves: win.
This expectation has stuck and has pushed Denmark to new heights. The only question remaining: how high can they go?
Denmark returned to footballing action at Parken in September like a team who hadn’t lost the biggest game of their lives two months prior in heart-breaking fashion. They dismantled Scotland and Israel with swagger, and worked their way past a scrappy Faroe Islands side in Torshavn despite a heavily rotated eleven. They’re on course to be the first team to qualify themselves for next year’s world cup, and have put themselves in that position without conceding a single goal in qualifying and by scoring an average of nearly four goals a game.
The way Denmark have dismantled their opposition, not just in qualifying but at the Euros as well, has been thorough, ruthless, and highly entertaining. They’ve dispatched minnows and average teams alike with a confident demeanour that ‘bigger’ established teams dream of. However, despite comfortably knocking the heads of teams below their level (Moldova, Faroe Islands, Israel) just as convincingly as those who used to be considered at their level (Scotland, Austria, Wales), Denmark have not yet proven themselves against the teams of the upper bracket they desire to break in to.
Since the end of the pandemic’s semi-permanent pause on football and the start of Kasper Hjulmand’s reign, Denmark have faced three proverbial ‘giants’: Belgium (three times), England (three times) and Germany (once). Their record? One win, two draws, four losses. It’s a tough record that leaves Denmark in something of a no-man’s-land, stuck between the labels of ‘average’ and ‘giant slayers’, and still out of reach of ‘world class’.
However, there are positives to be drawn from Denmark’s performances against these teams. In their three games against Belgium, two in the Nations League and one at the Euros, Denmark have never been made to look out of place and arguably looked the more composed team in the latter two fixtures (2–4, 1–2). Increasingly over the three games, they have recycled the ball effectively, been cautious defensively, and taken advantage of Belgium’s often wayward shape to carve out openings around the box. The only shortfalls? A lacking ability to punch through in the box or just outside it (one of Belgium’s most vulnerable areas) and an inability to shut down quick passing movements around the edge of their own box.
One could argue that the only real separator between Belgium and Denmark in the last two years have been their star players. Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne have been a recurring thorn in Kjaer & co.’s side and have been able to switch it on when it matters, scoring and assisting the goals that made the difference. That level of star power is something Denmark lacks, even more so since their best player has all but retired from international football.
The same issue has persisted for Denmark against England. In their two Nations League matchups, Denmark effectively held England, frustrating them by not letting Southgate’s players into the final third and by threatening through the flanks. These two games, as well as the pre-Euro friendly draw with Germany, illustrated Denmark’s two strongest traits: recycling the ball in midfield and energy conservation. Between Pierre-Emil Hojbjerg, Thomas Delaney, Christian Norgaard, and Mathias Jensen (three of which have plied their trade in England’s fast-paced and intense football divisions), Denmark are able to retain possession and calm the game down very effectively in any phase. Being able to give players time on the ball after gaining possession is difficult and a key component of energy conservation.
For me, this has been Denmark’s biggest strength since Kasper Hjulmand took the reins from Age Hareide. The young Danish coach, not especially favoured when he was given the job by DBU in 2019, has made the most of his very mixed-age team by building their game around long periods of ball retention that invite press (often pushing possession up with a wingback, through the midfield, and back around rather than the traditional deep recycling between centre-backs and midfielders), exploiting lapses in concentration from opposing full-backs and, most importantly, building fatigue in the opposition. Denmark rack up big scorelines and kill off games effectively by creating plenty of chances in the final 10/15 minutes with fresher legs and an eagerness to counter.
Denmark’s semi-final heartbreak against England displayed exactly how this can be exploited. Although he is often criticised for his tactical nous, Gareth Southgate got his semi final plans exactly right against Denmark. Bukayo Saka and Raheem Sterling were extremely effective in holding Denmark’s Joakim Maehle and Daniel Wass back in defence, seldom allowing them to get a touch of the ball past their own halfway line. This required far more running from Denmark, even in possession where they were effectively pushed to recycle the ball within their own half. As the game progressed, Denmark grew increasingly tired and attacked in small numbers to little effect. Ultimately, even though some saw the game as an unfair turn of luck for England, Denmark didn’t ever look ready to control the game and were so stretched that I doubt the players would even have been able to stay standing for hypothetical penalties.
Despite the flaws in Denmark’s tactical identity that were highlighted by England, it also showed their potential strengths and their biggest obstacle to overcome: scoring without dominating. Despite England’s domination in possession, they had fewer clear-cut chances against Denmark than one might expect, testing Schmeichel seriously twice and converting their other serious penetrations. Kjaer, Christensen, Vestergaard, and Andersen (who all had to deal with separate injury woes) comfortably won the battle in the air and never let England penetrate down the middle. England and Belgium are two of the most star-power teams around, and Denmark have now repeatedly managed to effectively reduce the amount of xG accumulated by either. However, (as trivial as it sounds) to win those sorts of games you need to score. Denmark’s biggest obstacle, ironically obscured by their crown of joint-highest goalscorers in World Cup qualifying, is scoring goals.
Everything from the goalkeeper up to the neck of the team is arguably in that world-class top bracket of football already. The attack is where it falters. Mikkel Damsgaard has gracefully filled in a position where Christian Eriksen once was king (Ewing theory anyone?), but the other two spots have been filled for the last 3+ years by two strikers, Martin Braithwaite and Yussuf Poulsen. Neither of them is really an out-and-out striker and neither of them is really a pure winger. Neither has scored more than 19 goals across all competitions in one season (ever) and neither of them is a prolific chance-creator. Neither of them is particularly quick. Most importantly, neither of them has really scored a goal for Denmark against the run of play.
While Kasper Hjulmand has been instrumental in turning Denmark into a very serious team, I cannot but fault him for the major oversights that are Yussuf Poulsen and Martin Braithwaite. There are far better choices on the bench (Skov Olsen, Wind, Bruun Larsen, Dolberg) and even outside the squad for Denmark (Sisto, Dreyer, Skov). We’ve seen how Kasper Dolberg can provide breakthroughs for Denmark and we’ve seen how quickly a young player can cement their spot in the squad (Mikkel Damsgaard), so Hjulmand’s reliance on two unreliable strikers continues to hold his team back.
Even with Poulsen and Braithwaite rotated out, the future remains unclear. This is part of one last point I want to make. Denmark’s squad is getting… old. Much of the team’s defensive core is either in or nearing their thirties (Schmeichel, Kjaer, Vestergaard, Delaney, Braithwaite) and their would-be replacements are practically non-existent. Only one keeper under the age of 29 has been called up in years, Joachim Andersen is 25 and has no would-be centre back partners under the age of 25, and the ageing Daniel Wass will seemingly never make way for Rasmus Nissen at right-back (that last one is a pet peeve). Beyond Joakim Maehle at left wing-back, Denmark has a number of gaping holes in the future of its defence.
So, what next? Denmark is sitting very comfortably with its level of expectations at the moment. They are head and shoulders better than any other ‘average’ team in Europe, and at the moment the only expectation has been to qualify for the World Cup without hiccups. However, the team does not look comfortable against Europe’s top teams (Italy, England, Belgium, France, Portugal) and has no upcoming opportunities to prove that they are up to that test and forge an identity for themselves as anything more than a dark horse for future tournaments. We will likely see Denmark face strong opposition in next year’s Nations League and pre-World Cup friendlies, but they will be a crucial opportunity for the Danes to prove themselves as serious challengers for the very top.
The team needs to prove its mettle against other halfway-house teams first (Spain, Netherlands, Germany), and figure out how to beat teams without dominating them if they want a member’s card to Europe’s elite club. The future is clearly bright for Denmark, but that potential is perhaps blinding us from where Kasper Hjulmand’s team will actually land.
