All those years later, the Danes remain one of European football’s powerhouses and are regularly seen at big tournaments as they prepare to welcome Steve Clarke’s Scotland to Copenhagen this week.<\/p>\n
Another opener between them, this time in the qualifiers for a tournament the hosts have been regulars at during Scotland’s barren years.<\/p>\n
Denmark have qualified for five of the past seven World Cups and topped their qualifying group for the 2022 edition, finishing four points clear of Clarke’s men.<\/p>\n
They prepare to renew acquaintance on Friday at the start of a campaign that was once played out across two seasons but will be completed within two months this time.<\/p>\n
It means there is little wriggle room for either team, with an emerging Greece side also in the mix and only the group winners automatically qualifying for the competition in the Americas next summer.<\/p>\n
Current Denmark head coach Brian Riemer, once Thomas Frank’s assistant at Brentford, has demanded his team makes a fast start against Scotland and has urged his players to embrace being favourites.<\/p>\n
From Celtic goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, defenders Anders Christiansen and Joakim Maelhe to Brentford’s Mikkel Damsgaard, captain Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Brendan Rodgers’ summer target, Kasper Dolberg, this is a well-oiled machine.<\/p>\n
It is, however, a machine without its star man for so long, with club-less midfielder Christian Eriksen left out following his departure from Manchester United.<\/p>\n
The Danes have only lost one of their past 17 home games and that was to the current European champions, and old foes, Spain in last year’s Nations League.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Clarke endured one of his most difficult nights in charge the last time they met at the Parken in 2021, with the Danes easing to a 2-0 victory.<\/p>\n
Scotland would recover thereafter in the group, but there is no real time for recovery this time around. <\/p>\n
Any defeat along this journey could do mortal damage to hopes of ending this seemingly perpetual hiatus from the greatest football show on earth.<\/p>\n
It is the toughest start Clarke could have been handed and, while their top seeds are not France, Germany, Portugal or Spain, the Danes have proven what they are capable of down the years, despite standing on the shoulders of their own giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All those years later, the Danes remain one of European football’s powerhouses and are regularly seen at big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-115949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}