GREAT DANES
Denmark dump Wales after Dolberg double
Amsterdam, June 26: Denmark marked the 29th anniversary of their greatest triumph by marching on to the quarterfinals of Euro 2020 on Saturday as Kasper Dolberg scored twice in an emphatic 4-0 win over Wales before an exultant travelling support in Amsterdam.
In the city where Christian Eriksen made his name, it was Dolberg — another former Ajax player — who opened the scoring with a fizzing strike in the 27th minute.
That came after Wales had started so well but Denmark never looked back and Dolberg struck again just after the restart before Joakim Maehle and Martin Braithwaite added more goals late on.
Carried by a wave of emotion, Danish dreams (Kasper Dolberg 27, 48, Joakim Maehle 88, Martin Braithwaite 90+4) are still intact in a tournament that began in such traumatic circumstances for them with Eriksen’s collapse in their opening match against Finland in Copenhagen.
They now go on to a lasteight tie in Baku against the Netherlands or the Czech Republic.
Eriksen, still recovering at home after his cardiac arrest, was present in everyone’s minds at the home of Ajax, and that combined with a vast Danish support inside the one-third full Johan Cruyff Arena made this occasion really like a home game for them.
European champions against all odds when they beat Germany in the final on this day in 1992, Denmark finally have their first win in the knockout phase of a Euro since then and it would be a truly extraordinary story if they could repeat the feat this time.
Nobody in Denmark will want to get ahead of themselves but Wales — who
finished with 10 men after Harry Wilson’s late red card — could certainly have no complaints about the outcome and there will be no repeat of their run to the semifinals at Euro 2016. They needed a moment of magic from captain Gareth Bale or Aaron Ramsey which never came, but in truth they were up against it from the outset.
To their credit Wales started well, with the probing Bale leading by example in the early stages.
He crashed a shot just wide in the 10th minute, but then Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen — Denmark’s third centreback — stepped up into midfield and they took control.
They when
were rewarded Dolberg, now of
Nice in France and selected ahead of Yussuf Poulsen in attack, collected the ball just outside the area and unleased a superb strike into the far corner of the net.
For Wales, the signs that it was not to be their night kept coming, as right-back Connor Roberts suffered a groin injury and had to come off.