Denmark

The Denmark national football team is controlled by the Danish Football Association. Denmark is the country with well-developed football system and there are many clubs in the country with a very long history. Football was considered an amateur sport for a long time and that probably retarded its development in the country.

The team achieved success and finished second in the Olympic Games in 1908, 1912, 1960 and it was third in 1948.

Denmark faced crisis after the War but playing in the final stage of the Olympic Games in 1948 and 1969 inspired the team for a comeback. Still the problem of amateur football remained as many football teams in Denmark enjoyed the status of nonprofessionals and the footballers playing abroad weren’t allowed to play for the national team. This ban was lifted only in 1976 and that certainly made a good impact.

Later in 1970s-1980s strong players joined the team and brought the team to higher level. In 1984 Euro Denmark reached the semifinals and in 1986 the team reached the second round in the World Cup. It was the year of 1992 that brought glory to Denmark with winning the European Championship and marked a very competitive result for future generations of Danish players.

In 1995 the team won the FIFA Confederations Cup and that was the end of successful performances. The period of recession followed with failure at Euro 2000, crushing to England in the World Cup 2002 and flopping at Euro 2004 and 2008. In 2010 Denmark made it to the World Cup but didn’t manage to pass the group stage. At 2012 European Championship the squad finally showed decent performance against strong opponents, but unfortunately yielded the way to Germany and Porugal.

Peter Schmeichel played the largest number of games. The team’s best scorers are Poul Nielsen and Jon Dahl Tomasson (52).