Who to support: England or Denmark?
Who do I support when Denmark plays England at football?
(I wrote this in Danish newspaper Politiken before the last time the two teams played each other in one of those big tournaments, and ENGLAND WON. They are apparently now going to play again in 2024, in another of those tournaments, which is frankly just a pain for me).
Previously in columns I have invited you to imagine a world ruled by Danes, and convinced you that you are all sex gods.
I’m taking things a step further today. I believe that on Wednesday all of Denmark should rally together… and support the England football team against their opponents, Denmark, in the European Championships semi-final at Wembley.
Wait, come back! I have 11 totally compelling reasons, plus one late substitute. I am fairly confident I am going to persuade you and hopefully, knowing Denmark as I do, I am sure that several readers will be personally acquainted with members of the team, so feel free to pass this on:
 - You Danes are richer than us English; you are happier, better-educated, better looking (see previous article for background on your sexual prowess), you’ve handled Covid better, your trains are nicer, you work less, the world loves you (at least the non-Muslim world), and you have definitely got it sorted when it comes to the array of implements for slicing cheese at your disposal. You have ‘overskud’ galore. (Overskud means ‘plenty, or even an excess of energy’).
 - We don’t have overskud in England. We don’t even have a word for it. Things are really, really shit in England these days. We are led by a prime minister who oscillates so rapidly between utter incompetence and transparent corruption that he is basically just a disastrous blond blur. Our industry has declined to the point that all we seem to produce are Japanese cars and reality TV stars. Culturally, all we have left is pop music and football. The Koreans are taking pop music, which leaves football. Please, let have have this tiny crumb from your heaving table of plenty. I am literally begging you.
 - You have probably forgotten because the Danish media rarely mentions it, but you have already won the Euros once. England has never won it. Of course, we have won the World Cup which is a much, much more important and significant tournament, and is much much more difficult to win (and we have been semi-finalists countless* times), but we invented the damn sport, so it seems fair we should be able to win all of the tournaments at least once. Right? Plus, you beat us last time we played, and at Wembley. Isn’t that enough?
 - We also invented Lego, actually, but are willing to let that drop if you just, you know, step aside.
 - We are your closest neighbours. We share so much in our culture and outlook: a sense of humour; a common sense distrust of successful people and Germany; a love of English football (see?); Midsommer Murders (perhaps you are bigger fans than we are but, you know, we gave you Inspector Barnaby - how about some appreciation?), and Rick Astley. What do good neighbours do? They share.
- We buy all your bacon. I’m not saying that will stop if you beat us, but I can’t promise there won’t be repercussions in the bacon aisles of English supermarkets.
 - There are around 30,000 Danes living in the UK. Don’t take this as a threat, but should the unthinkable happen and Denmark win on Wednesday, those Danes would be wise to pretend to be Norwegian*** for a while.
 - Look, I’ve been trying to be nice about all this, but I can tell you aren’t convinced. It’s time for some more difficult Anglo-Danish truths. Denmark, you OWE us. Big Time. For 1801 and 1807 to begin with: agreed, it was not very nice to bombard Copenhagen and sink your navy but a) it could have been worse. We could have chosen to turn Denmark into another of our colonies, and that never turned out well for anyone. But, as Shakespeare wrote: “The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven’. If it wasn’t for our mercy, by now you’d be speaking English**, wearing ties and eating jellied eels; and b) I feel I should point out that we still have a bigger navy than you, so…
 - We saved you from Hitler. Now, Kasper Hjulmand is good, I’ll give you that, but even he would have struggled to muster a team to take on the Nazis. You’re welcome.
 - Harry Kane is actually Danish. And so is the Queen of England.****
 - The winner is only going to end up having their trousers pulled down by 11 Mediterranean types on Sunday anyway*****. Wouldn’t it be nicer to save your boys those extra four days in a rubbish London hotel eating wrinkly sausages from the breakfast buffet while staring out at the rain?
 - Ok, my final pitch: I have a long-planned night out on Wednesday with friends in a very expensive restaurant. If Denmark win, not only will my evening be ruined, I will make sure that my friends’ evening is too. And you wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?
*3
** Even better than you do now, which is pretty good by the way. Well done on the speaking English thing!
*** Or Dutch. Like I said, the English education system isn’t what it was.
**** I think actually the Queen of England is a bit Danish, right?
***** This, sadly, turned out to be true.
END