BRIAN Laudrup has spent the past week being observed with serious envy as he coaches the teenagers he hopes will become Denmark’s footballing future.
Laudrup and Lars Hogh, Denmark’s goalkeeper from the 1986 World Cup, will tomorrow conclude the Laudrup-Hogh Pro Camp, their first week-long football school for the adolescents of Danish Superliga clubs, which has seen its youthful inductees taught t
he best habits from men of whom they are in awe.
However, the former Rangers player couldn’t help a hankering of his own as night fell on the camp and he settled down to watch his national team playing in Portugal.
Like his entire country, Laudrup has been mesmerised by the aggressive, attacking policy which, at the expense of Italy, has propelled Denmark to tonight’s Euro 2004 quarter-final with the increasingly-feared Czech Republic. Coach Morten Olsen has been the recipient of continent-wide praise for daringly implementing two wingers every time he picks the Danish team, part of a power-and-pace approach that has turned every head in the competition, as it did two years ago at the World Cup.
The two main protagonists in this structure are PSV Eindhoven’s Dennis Rommedahl on the right and Martin Jorgensen of Udinese, pictured, on the left, with recently-signed Birmingham winger Jesper Gronkjaer an able deputy for either. The beneficiaries, apart from Danish supporters, are leading striker Jon Dahl Tomasson and the deeper-sitting Ebbe Sand, the former with three goals already in the tournament, although the latter is likely to be absent this evening in Porto’s Estadio do Dragao.
Olsen’s dauntless philosphy, as well as frightening the Italians half to death in Group C’s opening 0-0 draw and seeing off Bulgaria before a draw with Sweden, has Laudrup wishing he was out in the wide open spaces of Portugal’s pitches in his country’s piercing red shirt. "I played under Olsen at Ajax in this very system and it’s great to be involved in it," he said. "As a winger I was getting the ball a lot and going one on one with the full-back, which is how I like to play. The forwards definitely dictate the game in Olsen’s sides, and as an attacker myself it was a pleasure to play in. I wish I was still playing for Denmark in that system, because, if you have the players for it, it’s a fantastic formation.
"In an attacking sense, Denmark are very strong and Tomasson is a massive player for us in that area. He is well served by the likes of Rommedahl. Defensively, Rene Henriksen is not the youngest, but he is still a clever, intelligent player, and Martin Laursen has defended without compromise against he likes of Francesco Totti and Christian Vieri.
"However, they now play against a Czech side which I rate as the best team in the competition. It will be a massive test and, although I believe that Denmark can do it, it will only happen if, to a man, they play to their utmost. If they play the way that they finished against Sweden, they will struggle. They stopped playing in the second half and if that happens against the Czechs then we will suffer for it."
Upon turning 35 in February, Laudrup became eligible for Denmark’s seniors league, a competition in which he wholeheartedly participates for Lyngby’s veterans alongside his brother Michael but it is to the brothers’ successors in the red of their country, the "Danish Dynamite" of 2004, that Brian directs the youths’ attentiosn. "I think that Denmark have played very well," he continues. "The game against Sweden started very well but it finished poorly for them, but overall they have been pretty impressive and have played some of the best football in the tournament with their attaking approach. When Morten Olsen took over as Denmark manager in 2000, he took his system with him from Ajax and Denmark have been playing that way for a few years now. Everyone is comfortable with it. Each player knows his job, they are playing it to perfection and you just have to give credit to the Danish team so far. The Czechs should know they’ve at least been in a game."
Laudrup’s thoughts reflect those of someone who has studied both of tonight’s quarter-finalists at length. Wine collecting has always been a passion of his, one he shares with his close friend Andy Goram, but in cold sobriety the Dane knows his country are up against it, Karel Bruckner having seen fit to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of his Czech squad by playing almost a second-string 11 against Germany in the last match of Group D, and beating the World Cup finalists 2-1 to force Rudi Voller out of a job.
But if anyone knows a bit about upsetting the odds in the European Championships, it is Laudrup. The life of Brian has never been the same since he, Peter Schmeichel, John Jensen and the rest made a mockery of the detailed preparation and concentration process which is recognised as essential build-up to any major tournament 12 years ago by helping Denmark lift the Henri Delaunay trophy as winners of the European Championships in Sweden.
Tales of the 1992 Danes being hauled off beaches all over Europe are not new, but Laudrup was probably in more tranquil mood than the rest of the scattered squad as the call came in saying his country needed him. Then a 23-year-old Bayern Munich player, he was in the process of overcoming a serious knee injury and hadn’t contemplated playing until July at the earliest, until the Yugoslavians revealed they couldn’t participate due to civil war.
"I was actually still recovering from the injury so I wasn’t fit enough to play in the European Championships," he recalled. "But once the games started our confidence just grew, to the point where we were beating Holland and Germany. Complete underdogs, but sometimes miracles happen in football and it certainly did that summer.
"Our fantastic success that year has been written and re-written in newspapers and told and retold on television in Denmark for many years now. The way we entered that competition was absolutely crazy and to win it was nothing short of a miracle. But the Danish squad this year have certainly been better prepared than we were. We’ve spoken about the effect of their unique system, and if you look at their results then they could go all the way.
"Our games from 1992 are still being shown on Danish TV after 12 years. It’s crazy but it just shows how much it means to our country. Some of the younger generations haven’t seen a lot of it and I still get them coming up to me and saying how amazed they were that we won. It will never be forgotten, and rightly so because it was fantastic for a small country like Denmark to actually win the European Championships."
After dismissing Italy’s allegations of conspiracy over Denmark’s 2-2 draw with Sweden as "nonsense", claiming that the Azzurri should "take a good look at themselves", Laudrup bade farewell to return to the youngsters who are at his helm, both hoping they would have new heroes to hail by the end of the Euro 2004 festivities.
