The Dragons’ fire goes out
WALES 0 DENMARK 4
Dolberg (27, 48) Maehle (89), Braithwaite (90)
Denmark rode a tidal wave of emotion into the quarter-finals of the Euros at the Johan Cruyff Stadium in Amsterdam last night.
And after witnessing this swaggering display, it would take a brave man who would bet against them against the winners of this evening’s tie between the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
The horror of Christian Eriksson’s cardiac arrest against Finland has given the country a tremendous unity and sense of spirit that is hard to match.
On the pitch and in the stands, some 15,000 had made their way to Holland believing they could be witnessing a repeat of the miracle of 1992.
Then, Denmark were parachuted into the Euros as a late replacement for Yugoslavia and ended up winning the thing.
Wales were swamped which was a shame as they started positively.
One Gareth Bale dart down the right saw him find Aaron Ramsey, always his favourite outlet, with the Juventus man’s snap shot blocked by a Danish leg.
The pair, world-class performers both, are invariably the focus of conversations about the country and it was encouraging to see them look in the mood.
Wales were outwitted, however, by a clever tactical switch from Danish coach Kasper Hjulmand.
He pushed Andreas Christensen up into midfield to squeeze the space available to Ramsey and cut down the supply to the giant Kieffer Moore. And it worked a treat.
They were better and more dangerous from that moment on and underlined their improvement by taking the lead with a beautiful goal.
Jaokim Maehle started it off, threading a diagonal ball diagonally forward to Mikkel Damsgaard.
The Sampdoria winger had his back to goal but he managed to spin and push the ball into the path of Kasper Dolberg, in for the injured Yussuf Poulsen.
Just outside the box and with two defenders in front of him, the striker curled a shot into the far corner of the net.
It made a big difference to the momentum of the game as Denmark had a real swagger about them from that moment on.
Wales shrank within themselves and conceded a second at the start of the second half when Dolberg pouncing on a skewed clearance by Neco Williams to net again.
Bale and his teammates complained long and hard, with some justification, that Moore had been fouled in the build-up, but the goal was allowed to stand.
While they tried their best to claw it back, Wales were on the way out from there and it was no surprise when they conceded a third with Maehle smashing a left-foot shot home late on.
Their bad night continued when Harry Wilson was shown what was a soft red card for fouling the scorer and Martin Braithwaite adding a fourth in injury time.