How Denmark won Euro 92: “We didn’t have the best players, but we had the best team”

This is the latest edition of a fortnightly series about the 16 teams that won the European Championship, ahead of the 17th edition being held in Germany this summer.

So far we’ve looked at the Soviet Union in 1960, Spain in 1964, Italy in 1968, West Germany in 1972, Czechoslovakia in 1976, West Germany again in 1980, France in 1984, and the Netherlands in 1988. This time it’s Denmark in 1992.

introduction

Probably the strangest international tournament victory ever.

Denmark won Euro 1992 despite not having qualified in the first place. Yugoslavia were banned from participating by UEFA due to their country’s civil war, so they were allowed to participate less than two weeks before the tournament.

Yugoslavia’s place was instead given to Denmark, who finished second in their qualifying group. When this decision was made, the Yugoslavia national team had already set up a training base for the tournament in Sweden (the host country).

Denmark were poorly prepared for the tournament, but the idea that all of their players were on vacation is a bit of an exaggeration. The couple had taken a short break, but the Danish league campaign ended just two weeks before the opening game, and the national team played a friendly against the short-lived CIS, which replaced the Soviet Union, a week before the Euros. I was planning to do it. .

Denmark’s success comes a month after the country was already in the news across Europe after voters narrowly voted “no” in a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. The Treaty of Maastricht was at one time considered to be a significant barrier to the formation of the European Union (then known as the European Union). Economic Community), nevertheless it happened the following year. After Denmark’s surprise participation in Euro 1992, Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen joked: “If you can’t join them, beat them.”

Geography was on Denmark’s side and its supporters. The first match of the tournament was against England in Malmö. Today it’s just across the Ålesund Bridge, but even before the bridge was built, it was just a short ferry ride from Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.

manager

Richard Mohler Nielsen was not a popular figure coming into the tournament. Nielsen, a defender who won two caps for Denmark 30 years ago and won two championships with his country as a manager, was also an assistant to national team manager Sepp Piontek.

Piontek was famous for building adventurous teams that were neutral favorites for the 1986 World Cup, but his assistant Nielsen wanted less entertainment and more structure. did. His way of playing was basic, defensive and rather plain, much like what we tend to associate with Scandinavian football.

His goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel was forced to apologize to the manager after telling the media that Piontek had made Danish football “upper class” while Nielsen had made Danish football “lower class”. I no longer get it.

His methods were so defensive that Michael Laudrup, the greatest player at his disposal and arguably the greatest Danish footballer of all time, did not play until Nielsen replaced him as manager. He refused and left the national team. His older brother Brian also quit. This clearly made Nielsen unpopular throughout the United States.

However, when Denmark qualified for Euro 1992, Brian returned to the team. Michael refused and went to America to watch the tournament on TV during his vacation. Therefore, Denmark’s best player missed his best moment. However, he returned a year later and played in both the 1996 Euros and the 1998 World Cup.

tactics

Denmark had been using a 5-3-2 for several years, but some important adjustments were made as the tournament progressed. After a boring 0-0 result against England and a 1-0 defeat against hosts Sweden, manager Nielsen dropped unsuccessful striker Bent Christensen and replaced attacking midfielder Henrik Larsen. was introduced.

We found this to be important for two reasons. First, Larsen scored the opening goal in a 2-1 win against France, which decided to advance to the knockout stage, and also scored two goals in the semi-final draw against Netherlands, 2-2.

Secondly, this allows Brian Laudrup to take up a more advanced position, especially in the breaks as the main striker, who is Denmark’s central attacking player and one of the center forwards who does the dirty work well. I was able to play against Flemming Povlsen. He doesn’t score that many goals and somehow seems to be successful at international level.

Left wing-back Henrik Andersen suffered a serious knee injury in the semi-finals, so after making some defensive adjustments, this was how they would approach the final.

It was generally a counter-attacking approach from Nielsen’s side, with a group of solid defenders and hard-working tough tackler John Jensen up front. But they certainly threw players into the attack, with all three midfielders popping up into forward positions and the wing-backs also pushing forward aggressively.

key player

Brian Laudrup showed some great side play against France, especially in the semi-final against the Netherlands, where he battered Frank de Boer.

But realistically speaking, it was Schmeichel. The goalkeeper, who has been with Manchester United for a year, was one of a relatively small number of Danish players to play abroad. “Some say we have the best goalkeeper in the world, so I wonder why they didn’t bring him in,” striker Povlsen told the media after enduring a shaky goal-less draw with England. he told the media.

However, he was outstanding throughout the remainder of the tournament. Particularly noteworthy was his aggressiveness when coming for crosses, regularly knocking down teammates in their desperation to steal the ball from him.

In the semi-final against the Netherlands, he was overtaken by Dennis Bergkamp’s shot, giving the Netherlands their first equalizer, but in the shootout Marco van Basten made a decisive save. He was also active in the final with his trademark saves from Stefan Reuter, coming out wide in one-on-ones and coming out on top, as well as making some great stops, including a flying save from Jurgen Klinsmann’s header. .

It’s also worth pointing out that Schmeichel was a key player in backpassing, one of Denmark’s key tactics. In the previous tournament, before the introduction of the back-pass law, goalkeepers were prohibited from handling intentional passes from teammates, and Denmark took full advantage of this.

They regularly ran the ball 30 yards backwards from defense or midfield to Schmeichel, who picked it up and wasted no time flying the ball downfield. To his credit, Schmeichel later admitted that he was a little embarrassed that Denmark had won the tournament in this way, calling the backpass method “the best rule change in the history of football.” calling.

You might be surprised to know…

Denmark initially didn’t seem to take the tournament particularly seriously, thinking they would only be in Sweden for three group games before being eliminated. That easy-going approach continued throughout the tournament, with Nielsen being surprisingly lax with his discipline.

As detailed by Dave Farrar in an article for Blizzard, Danish players’ memories of the tournament included an impromptu round of mini-golf the night before the crucial group final, and two days before the semi-finals. This includes eating Burger King for dinner. – final, and their partners stayed at the team hotel the night before the final, realizing that German fans had already booked all the hotel rooms in Stockholm.

Final

Even after defeating the Netherlands in a penalty shootout in the semi-finals, Denmark was still far behind against Germany. Although they had a much weaker team and had one less day off, they still seemed surprised to have made it to the tournament.

Germany started very strong, with Schmeichel forced into action several times throughout the first half. As various Danish players later admitted, the early goal would have probably been impossible to recover from, but they then took the lead from an unlikely source, completely against the run of play.

Jensen was regarded as an incredibly mercurial shooter, a reputation that carried over into his later spell at Arsenal, when he connected brilliantly from a cut-back on the right on the edge of the area and smashed the ball inside the near post. is. . Martin Tyler’s commentary for British television underlined the impact. “Yes! Jensen! John Jensen finally got it right!”

But the real hero was Schmeichel, who put in a great performance against a team that, to be honest, was barely able to hold Germany back. However, Denmark needed a second goal to be safe.

decisive moment

There was a tragic personal story in the story of a Dane returning from vacation and taking the euro half-seriously.

The second goal of the final came from midfielder Kim Villefort, who ran in from behind, cut inside and smashed the ball into the near post.

Villefort traveled back and forth between Sweden and Denmark during the tournament to be with his young daughter Line, who has terminal leukemia. The Danish Football Association only said he missed training for personal reasons. Once a media outlet reported the specific reason for his absence, his suffering became a public event, much to the dismay of his family.

Villefort rejected the ‘hero’ tag and returned from Denmark only twice, to play in the semi-finals and final, with the encouragement of his family who did not want to miss what became the biggest weeks of his sporting career. did. Lyne died shortly after the tournament.

Were they the best team?

They initially failed to qualify, finishing with a record of 50-1 (150-1 after failing to score in the first two games) and actually won only two games in the tournament. . They rode their luck at times, denying them a win against France with a goal that appeared to be offside, and ending the final with a goal from Villefort that may have been linked to a handball.

But by the same token, Denmark’s path to glory cannot be trivialized. After failing to score a goal in their opening two games against England and Sweden, resulting in just one point, they went on to defeat pre-tournament favorites France, Netherlands, and Germany, resulting in a scoreline of 2-1, 2-2. It was 2-0.

Nielsen’s focus on defensive form has resulted in him scoring six goals in three games against top opponents. “We had great spirit,” Villefort said. “We didn’t have the best players, but we had the best team.”

(Top photo: Getty Images)