World Cup 2010: Denmark

World Cup 2010: DENMARK

FIFA ranking: 34

Overall World Cup record: 7-4-2

Coach: Morten Olsen

Best performance: Quarterfinals, 1998

Overview: The Danes, as their fans proudly proclaimed, were “dynamite” when they won Euro ’92 in Sweden, but those were the days of Brian and Michael Laudrup and Peter Schmeichel, and Denmark no longer boasts such players. Forward Niklas Bendtner is hardly inspiring by comparison, and who else is there? All the same, Olsen has 20 years’ experience as a coach to add to his 20 years as a player, and Denmark’s first-round opponents, the Netherlands excepted, are not unbeatable.

-- Grahame L. Jones