WORLD CUP (5)

Despite Denmark's catastrophic home defeat by Armenia back in June, there was still a faint mathematical chance that they could qualify as one of the teams coming second in their group. That chance required not only that Denmark win all of their remaining matches, but all sorts of other permutations in the group. In the next round of matches, Denmark did win, and those permutations miraculously took place. So before this evening's crunch match against Italy (who had already qualified) in Copenhagen, the chance was faint, but less faint than before.

Armenia then did Denmark a huge favour by beating Bulgaria 2-1. People started to dream. They began to dream even more when their team came back from 1-0 down to lead 2-1 with 12 minutes to go. However, Italy equalised in injury time. With a 2-2 draw, Denmark are definitely, definitely out.    

What this story shows is sport's eternal ability to get people to suspend belief. Denmark currently have a mediocre team and don't deserve to go to the World Cup. But until the moment when that Italian shot hit the back of the net, I too was willing to hope that it wouldn't happen.

Walter Blotscher