England beat Denmark and are in the final

England dreams of their first participation in a final at the European Championship. The task at Wembley on Wednesday evening for the Three Lions was clear: to get the Danish Dynamite out of the way. Gareth Southgate took Jadon Sancho back out of the starting line-up for this mission and, like against Germany, played on Bukayo Saka on the right wing and also offered Mason Mount as a playmaker.

Before the kick-off, however, it was the fans in London who caused a stir. Despite the rapidly increasing corona incidence, masks were in short supply at the huge crowd in front of and at Wembley, and the English fans whistled at the Danish national anthem – this bad habit somewhat overshadowed the gesture of the two team captains Harry Kane and Simon Kjaer, who wore a jersey together before kick-off held by Christian Eriksen; the Danish playmaker suffered a heart attack in the group game against Finland.

Finally the focus turned to the sporty: a semi-final between the English longing and the Danish fighting spirit. After initial sampling with few great opportunities, Denmark got going after half an hour – and how! Mikkel Daamsgard nailed a free kick from 23 yards unsustainable for Jordan Pickford under the crossbar and gave Gareth Southgate’s side the first goal of the tournament.

England caught up quickly, however. Eight minutes later, Raheem Sterling initially failed on the brilliantly laid-out Kasper Schmeichel, only a minute later Bukayo Saka broke through on the right wing after a dream pass from Kane, played the ball sharply into the middle, where Simon Kjaer hit the ball with an attempted rescue operation own gate maneuvered. It is and will be the European Championship of own goals.

After the break, England took over the command more and more and put the Danes under control. However, the outstanding Kasper Schmeichel and a missed penalty to Harry Kane kept Danish Dynamite in the game.

Especially in the final phase, with a juicy six minutes of stoppage time, the game only ran to Schmeichel’s goal. Substitute Jack Grealish provided a lot of steam on the left side, the English tried again and again to bring the ball over the outside into the middle to Harry Kane – but unsuccessfully. The second semifinals at Wembley also went into overtime.

And there it got bitter for Denmark. In the 103rd minute, Raheem Sterling looked for the way into the penalty area and fell in a three-way battle with Maehle and Jensen, although hardly touched. The referee Danny Makkelie pointed to the point and was also no longer overruled by the VAR – a tough, perhaps too tough decision.

Harry Kane took the penalty kick, although he initially failed because of Schmeichel, but then scored the well-deserved lead for the Three Lions in the margin. The 2: 1 from the point of view of the English was absolutely fine at this point, but the way in which the goal was given an extremely bitter aftertaste.

And it stayed that way. Denmark failed to recover from Kane’s opening goal. It’s coming home – only Italy stands in the way of the European Championship final.

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