Denmark manager braced for Dutch play-off test

• Denmark face a Netherlands in a European play-offs
• Coach Lars Sondergaard took assign of a group in January
• The initial leg in a Dutch city of Breda sole out within 50 minutes

As a final alarm blew to sign Denmark’s 1-0 better by Sweden in their final FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019™ qualifier, a beating among a players was transparent to see. The Danes were forced to settle for second place after finishing 5 points behind their Swedish rivals.

“We suspicion we unequivocally had a good probability to win a game, yet we didn’t play really well,” pronounced Denmark manager Lars Sondergaard after a detriment that meant his side would not validate directly for France 2019. “We knew that we have to be during 100 per cent opposite a group like Sweden – and we weren’t. You could contend that this was a unsatisfactory thing about it, yet as time went by a mood improved.”

Yet their dream of a sheet to a Women’s World Cup is not over and can still be realised around the play-offs, where their semi-final opponents are a Netherlands – a group they met, and mislaid too, in a 2017 UEFA Women’s EURO final.

“We know where we mount now,” pronounced Sondergaard in an talk with FIFA.com. “At a start of a year – after a 3-0 detriment to Sweden [Editor’s note: a outcome that was awarded after a compare was not played], we knew that it would be tough to validate directly. Then unexpected we had a probability usually by winning a retreat fixture. Nevertheless, we always knew that this would be a really formidable track – these play-offs are tough.”

The tie represents a poignant plea for a 59-year-old, who usually succeeded Nils Nielsen as inhabitant group manager in Jan 2018 after several stints in assign of sides in his homeland of Denmark and Austria as good as RB Salzburg’s academy. “Women’s football has been intensely renouned in a final integrate of years, generally in a past year with a second-place finish during a EURO,” explained a male who spent his whole personification career as a midfielder for Aalborg. “Even yet we had usually coached men’s teams, it was really engaging to get a probability to manager a inhabitant team.

“It has always been a dream of cave to manager a inhabitant team,” Sondergaard continued. “I never suspicion about a women’s side, we contingency admit. When a probability and probability came up, we talked to a association and there was no doubt that we indispensable to take it.”

Article source: http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/news/y=2018/m=9/news=sondergaard-playoffs-will-be-tough-2995161.html