By Myles Palmer
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England 3 Denmark 0
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Sorensen og 5,Owen 22,Heskey 44
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Sunderland keeper Thomas Sorensen may be traumatised for life after his blunders gave Sir Sven’s heroes a walkover into Friday’s quarter-final.
Sorensen was playting in a team where everybody had a nightmare.
Stopper Martin Laursen, a nervous Nellie in a team of nervous Nellies, started the rout by giving away a corner with nobody hear him.
Five minutes, Beckham took the left wing corner, swings it beyond the far post, Ferdinand heads down across the goal-AND SORENSEN FUMBLES IT OVER THE LINE !!!!
What a gift!
The Danes suffered two hammer blows as Helveg, injured defending the corner, crashing into the pole which supports the net, had to go off.The contest never recovered.
England’s back six, including Butt and Seaman, were in command.The Danish wing play looked fragile, peripheral, impotent.
Then Trevor Sinclair pushed across a Danish-type pass to Nicky Butt and he flicked the ball forward.The ball hit Gravesen on the leg and broke for Owen who killed it neatly and buried it neatly.
2-0 after 22 minutes, end of match.
It was sharp opportunism by Owen, but another jammy goal. If Butt’s flick had not hit the Danish leg the ball would have gone out for a goal kick.
I really wanted to see a good match but this was a non-event. No contest, no interest.
The game flickered tantalisingly into life in the 27th minute when the Danes produced a slick move and Ebbe Sande beat Sol, beat Rio and swerved into the box and hit a fierce,low left-foot shot which went just past the post.
That was a glimpse of what might have been.The only glimpse.
The Danes were psyched out by England, or by the event. They were so inferior it was quite bizarre.
Felt sorry for Sorensen and all Danish fans. What a nightmare.To exit the World Cup with a whimper like this.
Then it got even better for England with another gift.
Left back Claus Jensen headed the ball nervously against Beckham, who squared it cleverly for Heskey to blast from the D.
Heskey’s powerful shot went low through Sorensen, who had not set himself properly. Terrible goalkeeping.
Half time in the BBC studio, Peter Schmeichel said,”Very, very poor defending on all three goals.”
I felt cheated.I was geared up to enjoy a World Cup match and found myself watching Arsenal v Barnet. Barnet knew they could not win, so it was boring.
Nothing the Danes did worked.Their passing,shooting and crossing stunk, especially their shooting.
Jon-Dahl Mogadon was hopeless, as were Gronkjaer,Toftig, Rommedahl, almost all of them.
It was the first time in 12 World Cup Finals games in 1986,1998 and 2002 that Denmark had failed to score. Every other game, they scored one goal at least.
Second half, Fowler came out for Owen and added finesse, Dyer soon replaced Scholes(twisted ankle), and Sorensen tipped over a Beckham 25-yarder.
Seaman tipped one over at the other end from Jensen.
ASSUMING BRAZIL beat Belgium at 12.30 on Monday, what will Friday bring?
A fascinating series of duels.
ROBERTO CARLOS versus Danny Mills – I fancy CARLOS.
CAFU versus Ashley Cole- I fancy ASHLEY, big time
SOL versus Ronaldo- I fancy Sol.
RIO versus Rivaldo- I fancy Rio.
LUCI0 versus Owen- I fancy Lucio.
GILBERTO versus Scholes- I fancy Gilberto.
So I think Brazil are superior in three of those duels and England are superior in three.
That makes it a game. We didn’t see a game today.I wanted to see a compelling contest, like Mexico v Italy, but it never happened.
The Denmark that beat Uruguay 2-1 and France 2-0 did not turn up.
If Sorensen had not boobed, Denmark might have played. We don’t know.It’s hypothetical. We will never know. So forget it. On to the next.
We don’t know if today was meaningful in terms of being serious contenders to win this World Cup. But the back six look very good, even if the attack was patchy.
And Sven’s luck is still holding.He has been INCREDIBLY lucky so far.
Mostly, Sven had made England strong mentally. Today they won the game mentally, before the game and during the game.
Sven-Lucky Erikssson has shown us that football is played in the mind.
Belief is everything, as it is with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal.
Sven doesn’t have as many good players as Wenger, but he has Ashley and Seaman and Rio and Sol.
And a dozen others who can do a job, notably Scholes and Owen.
Beckham was average again, but England won 3-0.
And, as we know, if footballers believe anything, they believe RESULTS!
15th June 2002.