nunes@utai.UUCP (Joe Nunes) (02/17/86)
*** What Is the Worth of Denmark-86? *** (From the "bricklayer" Elkjaer, to the "sculptor" Laudrup) How is it that Denmark, making its World Cup debut and an old "client" of Portuguese football (in 5 games, 5 wins for Portugal with 14 goals scored and only 3 allowed) is being pointed at, despite being in a group with West Germany, Uruguay, and Scotland, as one of the favorites to win World Cup-86, where we feel that the Continental Law (a kind of Monroe Doctrine of football) will be prevalent? The answer is, at the same time, simple and difficult depending on whether we decide to focus on the existence of a Danish football elite, a Foreign Legion spread throughout various European nations, or, on the contrary, we bury ourselves in an explanation of a technical-tactical phenomenon, according to which a football style of British roots suffered the effects of a sort of "continental osmosis" that made it less pragmatic and conservative and, hence, more "international", more elastic, more ecumenical. Getting away from a professorial tendency, we will opt for the interdependency of these two basic components which would probably not even be relevant if a brilliant German coach called Sepp Piontek hadn't put together the puzzle of Danish football. What puzzle? The psychological mobilization, in a national sense, of the country's players spread throughout Europe (something like 20 out of the 38 elite (!!!)) visiting them all year round, and to convince the Danish Federation to spend the money necessary to keep this atmosphere very alive, very prominent, and very aggressive. Just last year herr Piontek travelled, in the majority of cases driving his own car, roughly 60,000 kms appearing unexpectedly in various cities where the flower of the football players "made in Denmark" play. From Brussels to Vienna passing through Rotterdam, Liverpool, Marseilles, Munich, Pisa, Turin, Lausanne, who knows? Via this process it was possible to keep alive a kind of "sacred fire of the Vikings", and with it an affirmation of modern Danish football which, after being a sensation in the European Cup-84, managed to qualify for World Cup-86 not with the same ease as drinking water (or better: beer) but ... almost. Without wanting to make an exhaustive analysis of the physical-athletic- technical-tactical qualities of the top Danish players, the base of a highly feared national team, there are a few players who, principally for belonging to that almost extinct race of great forwards, are deserving of special reference. In front of everyone is a 28 year-old player, 1.83 meters in height, weighing 73 kgs, who has just been unanimously elected "Athlete of the Year" by the Federation of Nordic Journalists in Gothenburg Sweden. In Portugal where, unfortunately, there doesn't exist the same strength in a wide variety of sports found in the central belt of Europe, we don't get a correct impression of the full worth of this honour, given to a man that plays football outside Denmark, that had to surmount cases of local popularity at a multinational level such as that of Swedish javelin-thrower Gund Svan, Finnish ski-jumper Matti Kykaenen, Norwegian javelin-thrower Annette Boe, and Icelandic athlete Elnar Vihjalmsson. No one doubts that Preben Elkjaer Larsen, a Danish Briegel, a bulldozing-style player who aside from constructing football can also transport it, and who, not satisfied with all this, scores goals, many goals, was totally deserving of this distinction. Without exalting his awe-inspiring Italian "campaign" which, with Briegel, was at the base of Verona's only conquest of the Italian title in its history, the credentials of this player who scored no less than 8 goals in the qualification games of World Cup-86, improving his record to 31 goals in 52 internationals, are, in today's game, a shock! With the build of a truck driver (we remember him in European Cup-84 tearing through all the opponents which placed themselves in his way) Elkjaer is not a classical stylist, not a prima donna but a "bricklayer" of quality who "constructs" football in the same way that bricklayers erect square meter upon square meter of walls. But Denmark doesn't just benefit from the luck of having Elkjaer. In contrast with him, but participating in the task of manufacturing an attacking game, there is a slender young man who is magnificent in the control and passing of the football: Michael Laudrup who today in Juventus conducts a well-understood football dialogue with the super-famous and lordly Michel Platini. Instead of being a "bricklayer" Laudrup is a "sculptor" who creates an art of movement. And now we understand everything. Where else in Europe is there a national team in which live, in technical-tactical harmony, an Elkjaer and a Laudrup? In these parts we all well know how rare and enviable this is. Of course, Denmark is not just this. It also possesses, in the framework of a 4-4-2 which transforms itself, in a highly dynamic way, into a 4-5-1 and even a 3-5-2, a group of players which produce a football of constant pressure. A football that hurts, crushes and pulverizes. The experience of the 36 year-old veteran captain Marten Olsen, commander of a huge defense which is very difficult to beat through the air, and the incomparable working capacity of a midfield in which there are not 1 but 4 piano-movers (and others waiting in line) make up the rest of Denmark ... and how they make it! Attention, therefore, to these 20th century Vikings (almost, almost). If the altitude and the heat don't damage their Scandinavian health they will present a difficult task for West Germany, Uruguay, and Scotland to begin with, and then it's in the hands of God. Glem ikke (don't forget) ...