Denmark 2 – Slovakia 1: The win that time forgot

March 29th, 2011 | by: Cerberus | Comments Off

This game occurred. It was played and Denmark even looked the dominant for the entire game. We got a win in a friendly, one which should soothe egos from the harsh tie and which gave many backup players some international experience.

If it sounds a bit bland, that’s because the game was a bit bland. And that’s mainly because the opponents, Slovakia who are usually quite talented seemed ill-suited and out-of-sorts this game. This game started with a 3rd minute own goal by Slovakian defender Kornel Salata and that own goal kind of defined the match.

We had some flair and some good attacking possession football. Young midfielder Christian Eriksen is definitely growing into his potential as a future star for us and despite fielding essentially the B squad, they played very much like Denmark.

But overall, Slovakia seemed a bit out of sorts, fumbling important passes, needing crucial defensive plays, and often just sitting back with 10 behind the ball waiting for the counterattack.

I was expecting to take Slovakia, but I was thinking they would approach as equals, especially considering they were mostly playing the second-stringers.

Overall, it was interesting to watch, but there were few real plays that were beauteous to watch.

The goals began with an own goal, Slovakia countered themselves Filip Holosko took advantage of an out of position Lars Jacobsen and a bad attempt at interception by backup keeper Stephan Andersen to equalize, and we went ahead on…essentially, a game of rock ‘em-sock ‘em robots in the box with three strikers trading short strikes with defenders until Michael Krohn-Dehli got a dribbler through the keeper and into the goal.

Seriously, if I manage to track down a goal video for the game, I’ll put it up, because that last goal was rather hilarious to watch.

But overall, there were few moments of flair. There was some great possession play and certainly some good dominance from Denmark, but overall, it seemed like a workman-like performance. It’s good that we perform this well, even on reserves, even when we’re not exciting, but it leaves very little to talk about.

Even the backups didn’t really leave much to say. They weren’t terrible, they made some mistakes that a better team would’ve capitalized on, they were adequate for the job.

As such…the lineup:

Andersen
Jacobsen, Jørgensen, Svensson, S Poulsen
J Poulsen, Schøne, Kvist
Rommedahl, Bendtner, Krohn-Dehli

32′ Enevoldsen on for Rommedahl
46′ Lorentzen on for J Poulsen
61′ Eriksen on for Schøne
76′ Junker on for Bendtner
84′ Skoubo on for Krohn-Dehli

Ah, there is one more thing to talk about. Playing Bendtner injured again is something unlikely to make Arsene Wenger happy. I guess we should assume he was fit and good and certainly Bendtner didn’t seem troubled or limping on the pitch, but he was definitely afraid of getting reinjured. I also had to wonder at the wisdom of replacing nearly the entire front line and midfield before letting him get some rest.

Maybe Olsen thought playing time was the best cure for his knock, but in a meaningless friendly where nearly everyone else was swapped out for second-stringers, we could have let him heal if only to shut up Wenger.

Even if Junker can’t hit a wide-open goal from a handful of yards out.