Never before has a team at a European Football Championship managed to make it into the knockout round after two defeats at the start. Then the Danes came. The support of the fans, the cheers of the team – it was a magical European Championship night.
At 0.28 a.m., the Danes’ two team buses left the Copenhagen stadium. The “magical night” that her coach Kasper Hjulmand had announced beforehand and then received exactly as it was, was far from over. Because his players just kept singing and dancing on the buses. And out on the streets of the Danish capital, thousands of fans were doing exactly the same. It looked like an entire country just couldn’t stop celebrating almost two hours after its national team’s 4-1 (1-0) victory over Russia. After two defeats at the beginning, the co-hosts Denmark actually reached the round of 16 of this European football championship and will now play against Wales next Saturday in Amsterdam.
At least EM history was written here
“I could never have dreamed of being part of something so big,” said 20-year-old Mikkel Damsgaard, who on Monday evening was one of four Danish goalscorers (38th minute) alongside Yussuf Poulsen (59th), Andreas Christensen ( 80th) and Joakim Maehle (82nd) was. “The last game against Belgium was the greatest I had ever experienced. But this one beats that experience again.”
The Parken Stadium in Copenhagen is already something like the location of this European Championship. In just ten days, players and spectators experienced one after the other: the cardiac arrest and the resuscitation of the Danish playmaker Christian Eriksen in the 1-0 draw against Finland, the highly emotional return of the team in the 2-1 draw against Belgium, when it was meanwhile clear that it would be 29 -year-old star of Inter Milan is getting better again, and now on Monday evening the Russia game, this “folk festival in the park”, as Danish television called it.
25,000 spectators celebrated their team in a deafening way. The players, coaches and coaches made four laps of honor in total. At the very end, the fans called the head coach Kasper Hjulmand once again all by himself in front of the south stand, because it was he who led this team through the difficult past week and who had also successfully switched them after the failure of their best player.
And when everyone had left – most of the players in the dressing room, the coach in the press conference and the fans in the Copenhagen night – FC Barcelona striker Martin Braithwaite walked again with three of his children across the lawn of the now empty stadium, like that as if he wanted to show them: take another look at this place. At least EM history was written here.
Hjulmand himself didn’t exaggerate that evening when he said: “The Danes gave us wings. They gave us so much love. Without them, none of this would have been possible.”
The pictures of Eriksen’s breakdown. The cohesion of his teammates in this dramatic moment. The sympathy of millions of fans. And the relief that the 29-year-old even left the hospital: All of this generated an energy that Hjulmand said on Monday evening: “The courage, the solidarity, the friendship of these players: I take off my hat to that. These footballers played their way into the hearts of the Danes. They gave the girls and boys at home some idols. ”
Already against Belgium, and now even more so against Russia, it had the impression that there were not just 25,000 spectators cheering on eleven footballers on the pitch. It’s as if a whole country were standing together these days. Thousands of people celebrated this success well into the night in Copenhagen with car parades and several open-air parties in central squares of the city. In addition, the Danish football anthem “Vi er røde, Vi er hvide” (We are red, we are white) is one of the most atmospheric stadium songs that has ever been composed. In the capital, it could be heard from almost every bar and open car window on the day of the game.
“We have all experienced a turbulent, emotional rollercoaster ride in the last ten days,” said goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel. “But that shows what football can do. What football can do with an entire nation.” Christian Eriksen also noticed this at home in Odense. “Christian wrote to our WhatsApp group immediately after the game. It was great to hear from him,” said defender Jens Stryger Larsen.
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
