England (FIFA Ranking 4) v Denmark (10), Weds 7th July 20:00A ruthless performance from England saw them clock up four goals to knock Ukraine out at the quarter-final stage. Andriy Shevchenko’s men were visibly fatigued following their epic encounter with Sweden in the last 16 only a few days before, but nonetheless, credit must go to Gareth Southgate’s men for their performance.
Denmark, on the other hand, took a two-goal lead against the Czech Republic in their quarter-final before Patrik Schick netted for their opponents in the 49th minute to make things a little closer in Baku. However, they managed to get over the line and emotions were high for the players after what has been a rollercoaster ride for this group of players following Christian Eriksen’s collapse in the opening game.
This will be the fourth time ever that Denmark have made it into a major tournament last four, with the last time they managed it coming back in 1992 when they went on to win the competition in Sweden. Things were a little different then, with only eight teams competing for the trophy and no doubt they’ll have their work cut out at Wembley this Wednesday.
It is back-to-back semi-finals for the Three Lions at major tournaments after reaching this stage at the 2018 World Cup, and considering prior to that their previous last four appearance came back in 1996, Gareth Southgate certainly deserves all the plaudits coming his way. They’re the only team yet to concede a goal this tournament and now on a run of 10 wins from their last 11 unbeaten outings, it’s clear to see why they are the favourites.
We wouldn’t write the Danes off though. They’ve lost just five times over 90 minutes from their last 53 outings dating back to November 2016, as one of those defeats was a friendly against Slovakia where a second-string took to the field owing to a dispute between the players and the Danish FA, another against Finland in the opener of this tournament when Eriksen collapsed and all the other three against the number one ranked side in the world, Belgium. In fact, against the better current top 15 sides in the FIFA World Rankings, they are a respectable W3-D5-L3 from their 11 matches since the start of 2018, including a goalless draw in Denmark against England as well as a 1-0 victory at Wembley last October.
The hosts, having failed to win a single game against the current top 15 sides in the world between November 2016 and July 2018 over 90 minutes (D6-L4), have since gone W6-D3-L3 from their 12 such outings to date. On home turf alone against those top teams, they’ve won 11 of their 18 matches, losing only twice, as each of their victories finished either 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1, while 13 of those 18 games saw fewer than three goals.
We’re slightly hesitant to get behind England to win given their current short price, and if we did get behind them we’d need the 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 multiscore odds to get us interested. However, the safe bet looks to be in this one seeing fewer than three goals, as that has happened in both their recent head-to-heads, while only three of 10 World Cup or Euro semi-finals have featured three goals or more since 2010, with two of those as a result of injury time consolation efforts.
Under 2.5 Goals @ 1.67