Thought you had reached peak excitement level? Think again.
Admit it, you’ve been whistling the ‘Fields of Athenry’ all day and don’t tell us that you haven’t had ‘Put ’em Under Pressure’ on loop since after lunchtime.
As if you weren’t excited enough, Danish captain Simon Kjaer has come out and said that these matches mean that one team will fly into heaven while the other will lose out and slip into hell…
Speaking to Goal, Kjaer said the matches were going to be extremely special.
“It is like two finals where we are not playing for a trophy, but for a ticket to the World Cup,” he told the publication before departing for national team duty.
“It is really special with this knockout playoff set-up. It’s all decided in such a short time: Heaven or hell?
“We have great expectations for ourselves, and now we need to get a good result in the ‘first half’ of this tie. But we know in Parken, we will have excellent support behind us.
“There is so much at stake in these playoffs, because both ourselves and the Irish players dream of representing our country on the biggest stage,” he said.
Kjaer knows all about the threat that the Boys in Green carry and was really impressed with their display in Euro 2016 and he notes that it will not be easy to get a win at home against Martin O’Neill’s men.
“The Irish players are extremely hardworking, well organised and, yes, simply a very difficult team to beat,” he added.
“Obviously they did well in their qualifying group – and they reached the knockout phase of the last Euro, so we know we’re up against a team of very good quality who deserve all our respect.”
