Btw ...First time ever, that we have 3 Nordic teams qualified for the same WC ... Iceland, Sweden and Denmark ... we had Norway, Sweden and Denmark at the Euro 2000 finals, but never all 3 at the same WC finals ...
In fact ... while both Norway and Sweden participated at the WC finals in 1938 ... the Danish FA was not even interested in trying to participate in the WC qualifiers until 1958 when the finals were held in Sweden ... The main reason for this I'm sure was the Danish FA being highly conservative, trying to preserve the amateur Olympic principles ... with Great Britain and Denmark being the by far strongest football nations at the first official Olympics in 1908 and 1912, where England beat Sweden by 12-1 in the 1908 quarter-finals and Denmark trashed France by 17–1 in the semi-finals, just as Great Britain also faced Denmark in the 1912 Olympic final... The Danish FA did not even allow part-time professional players in the NT before 1971 so the Danish Olympic team of 100% Danish league amateurs was the exact same team as the NT Denmark were fielding at the Euro finals and in the WC qualifiers later on .. It was actually not until 1978, when the Danish FA also decided to allow part-time professional football to be introduced in the Danish league and they then also hired Sepp Piontek as the first full-time professional NT coach in 1978 that Denmark started using real Danish foreign based top-class professionals ... In fact, Denmark had world-class players playing as profesionals abroad before 1978, but just not for the Danish NT, which is why Denmark were looking great at the Olympics, where the opponents were also amateurs but when these players became professionals abroad, the Danish NT was doing rather poorly at the Euro and WC qualifiers up until the mid 80's when Sepp Piontek had managed to change the amateur attitude and was using the top professional Danish players.
Here is top-20 of the updated official World ranking that will be revealed on 23. November 1. Germany 2. Brazil 3. Portugal 4. Argentina 5. Belgium 6. Spain 7. Poland 8. Switzerland 9. France 10. Chile 11. Peru 12. Denmark 13. Colombia 14. Italy 15. England 16. Mexico 17. Croatia 18. Sweden 19. Wales 20. The Netherlands Back in April this year Denmark was only 51 in this ranking ...
I think the jump in ranking and current position is warranted, although Denmark could possibly switch places with Peru. Now if only the WC2018 seeding was based on this month's ranking!
Denmark has played against two of the other top-20 ranked teams this year ... 1-1 against Germany in a friendly and then the 4-0 win against Poland in the WC qualifiers.
Btw .. I wrote earlier that Sisto is the assist king of Spain ... he still is after todays game where he made yet another assist ... http://www.worldfootball.net/assists/esp-primera-division-2017-2018/ If we count both goals and assists, he is 2nd behind Messi : http://www.worldfootball.net/scorer/esp-primera-division-2017-2018/ In fact Sisto is shared assist king of all of Europe right now, along with David Silva in the English PL : http://www.worldfootball.net/assists/eng-premier-league-2017-2018/
Nah ... they got it wrong for Serie A ... Immobile only got 6 completed assists : http://www.legaseriea.it/en/serie-a-tim/statistics/NAssist http://nr.soccerway.com/national/italy/serie-a/20172018/regular-season/r42011/players/?ICID=PL_3N_04
The Danish NT will play two friendlies later this month on the following dates: Thu 22 Mar, vs Panama at Brøndby Stadion Tue 27 Mar, vs Chile in Aalborg
The Danish squad as of 13 Mar... Målmænd: Kasper Schmeichel (Leicester), Frederik Rønnow (Brøndby) og Jonas Lössl (Huddersfield). Forsvarsspillere: Simon Kjær (Sevilla), Andreas Christensen (Chelsea), Mathias "Zanka" Jørgensen (Huddersfield), Riza Durmisi (Real Betis), Jens Stryger Larsen (Udinese), Henrik Dalsgaard (Brentford), Jonas Knudsen (Ipswich) og Nicolai Boilesen (FCK). Midtbanespillere: Thomas Delaney (Werder Bremen), William Kvist (FCK), Lasse Schöne (Ajax), Christian Eriksen (Tottenham), Lukas Lerager (Bordeaux) og Mike Jensen (Rosenborg). Angribere: Nicolai Jørgensen (Feyenoord), Pione Sisto (Celta Vigo), Andreas Cornelius (Atalanta), Yussuf Poulsen (RB Leipzig), Nicklas Bendtner (Rosenborg), Viktor Fischer (FCK) og Martin Braithwaite (Bordeaux). Bonus: the Eriksen show at Swansea yesterday https://streamable.com/x0gk1
Eriksen looked like he could not care less against Panama ... fortunately Sisto was in need of proving his worth, surprisingly being in poor form in the Spanish league, not having played the full 90 minutes for Celta Vigo so far after the winter break inspite being their assist king. ...but apparently this made him able to focus more on this NT friendly ...
In general, I thought everyone played well, in particular Sisto, Delaney, Kvist and Zanka. I guess Eriksen can afford to switch off for such games lol (although he did play better as the game progressed). I'm still a bit unsure whether Stryger should continue as first choice LB and wonder what you guys think. Overall, a good test match. Happy to see some nice combination between our players, and think we could have won by a bigger margin. Bring on Chile!
Delaney isn't American. He has some sort of American connection (also Irish from way back), but he was born in Frederiksberg. I don't think he has ever been to the US.
To me, he was great. Not just in the deeper role alongside Kvist. After Eriksen came off, he got even more impressive as he contributed a lot to the attacking play. My MOTM along with Sisto.
Denmark drew 0-0 with Chile last Tuesday. Chile was definitely a harder test than Panama! They were pretty menacing in the first half but we held our own and were the better side in the second half. We came close on quite a few occasions, including a free kick by Schöne that hit the post. Sisto also ballooned his shot into the crowd from a good chance early in the second half. Overall I think we were slightly better than Chile but a draw was still a fair result. Braithwaite, in for Bendtner after the break, was pretty impressive imo. He made a couple of key contributions... first there was this lovely move between Sisto, Eriksen and him. When Eriksen sent the ball over to the right flank, he hit a wonderful first time cross into the box to Cornelius who headed wide. Also, near the end of the game, he made a surging run through the Chilean defense before passing the ball to Fischer whose shot was saved by the keeper. Over at left back, Knudsen looked pretty good. He defended well, is pacy and combined well with Sisto on the left. We should try him again in the next friendlies. Btw, the players were wearing a special set of jerseys for this match The "Made By Denmark" jerseys created by Hummel were made from old Denmark shirts collected from the public. It's a patchwork design that combines elements of the past Denmark jerseys including the iconic 1986 home shirt. For example, this was the shirt worn by Andreas Cornelius. These shirts are being auctioned off and the proceeds will go to Fodboldfonden, an organization helping vulnerable children in Denmark. p.s. A nice clip by Hummel promoting the "Made by Denmark" shirts: https://cdn.hummel.net/Files/Images/MadeByDenmark_DANSK.mp4