Denmark arrive at EURO 2025 with a point to prove. A 6-1 defeat to neighbours Sweden was their final match before they open their EURO campaign against… you guessed it, Sweden, on match day one of EURO 2025.
Placed in a tough group, with far from ideal preparation, how will Denmark manage in Switzerland this Summer? Here at The Halfway Line we have assembled a profile with the hope of providing you with some answers to that very question.
Pernille Harder: More than a captain
Pernille Harder is perhaps the greatest player ever to pull on the Hummel adorned blood red jersey of Denmark. A mere six votes off being the original winner of the Ballon d’Or Feminin, Harder has excelled at every club she has played for. In all four seasons with Wolfsburg she won the league and cup double. After moving to Chelsea she did the same. Harder moved to Bayern Munich in 2023 and has enjoyed a return to her very best form.
Last season she has managed 25 goal involvements in 30 matches in the Frauen Bundesliga and UEFA Women’s Champions League. That included a group stage hat trick against eventual champions of Europe, Arsenal.
As for her record with the National team is concerned, she has been named Danish player of the year eight times and has scored a record 78 goals for her nation. She scored a hat-trick on her international debut and captained Denmark to their first ever official major final, at EURO 2017.
A EURO 2025 power couple
Not for the first time at a major tournament, Harder’s fiancée Magdelena Eriksson will play for rival Scandinavian country Sweden. Sweden of course share a spot in Denmark’s group but both remain supportive of each other.
The pair were famously pictured kissing following Eriksson’s Sweden progressing to the quarter final of the World Cup in 2019, with Harder donning a Sweden shirt. It was a run of the mill, daily occurrence for them, but an action that set huge positive waves emanating across the world. Simple as it was, it provided vital visibility, the type of which currently only the women’s game is equipped to provide.
The pair are keen and vocal advocates of LGBTQ+ rights. Harder and Erikkson released a short film called ‘Love Always Wins’ a number of years ago. The film denotes a seminal message, that “everyone should be able to love who they want and not be judged for it.” Hear hear.
Did you know? Harder has won the domestic league title every year for a decade now with four different clubs including two from the same country.
The man leading Denmark at EURO 2025
For the second tournament in a row the Danish national team will have a new head coach at the helm after the final ball is kicked at a major tournament. Jakob Michelsen has already been confirmed as taking over after the European Championships but for now responsibility lies with Swede Andrée Jeglertz.
Jeglertz is perhaps best known for managing Umeå IK to UEFA Women’s Champions League glory in 2004. Jeglertz also has prior experience managing at a European Championships, he guided Finland to two creditable draws against Italy and Denmark. But a handsome 5-0 loss to Sweden put pay to their European Championship dream in 2013. Denmark impressed during qualification and were able to qualify automatically without the need of a play off. They finished the group only three points behind World Champions Spain. Their momentum has taken a turn of late however. That 6-1 defeat came just after Jeglertz was heavily linked with the Manchester City job, a position he is widely expected to take up after the tournament.
Jeglertz is unafraid to make huge decisions, for better or worse. Controversially he left Lyon full back formerly of Real Madrid Sofie Svava out of Denmark’s EURO 2025 squad. Svava was important for Denmark in qualifying, a particular highlight for her came when she assisted twice and scored once in a 4-2 victory over direct group rivals Belgium. Yet still, she misses out alongside Olivia Holdt and Mille Gejl of Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace respectively.
Jeglertz will hope to rally the Danish squad for the tournament and they certainly have the talent to cause an upset. Whatever happens the tournament will be Jeglertz last in charge before a potential exit to pastures blue.
Denmark’s EURO 2025 wildcard with an extraordinary story: Nadia Nadim
Born in Afghanistan, Nadia Nadim grew up in a country where she was not allowed to play football in public. Despite this, her father actively encouraged her to play football. He even bought her a ball to practice with in the garden, behind closed doors. She loved it so much she slept with the ball at night. Nadim was 12 years old when her father, a member of the Afghan army, was executed by the Taliban.
The family had to flee the country with falsified documentation. After making it to Pakistan, they found their way to Italy where Nadim, her mother and four siblings got on a truck with no idea where it was headed. In the darkness of that truck, hidden from various border controls, they sat in silence for almost 30 hours. Suddenly they stopped. Nadim’s mother stepped out of the truck. In front of her was a man on a walk with his pet poodle. She asked “Where are we?” “Denmark,” the man replied, and in Denmark the family made a life. Just over fifteen years later, Nadim would open the scoring for Denmark in their first ever major tournament final.
She is a talent that has thrived against the odds, she is a fully qualified Doctor and she speaks nine languages. Not an uncomplicated character, Nadim can be divisive. Her recent spell at AC Milan came to an acrimonious end, with Nadim noting: “I can honestly say that the training sessions at the refugee camps were better.”
Nadim is a beautiful player to watch and she has played for some of the most exciting teams in world football, including Portland Thorns, Manchester City and PSG. Following her time in Milan she moved to Sweden to don the iconic Bajen green and white of Hammarby, a club infused with a passion much akin to Nadim’s.
She plays with a fearlessness to her game. As she grows older her influence on the team wanes but the head coach has clearly seen something in her, returning her to the set up for EURO 2025 after 18 months in the cold.
Denmark’s EURO 2025 Twinning Mentality
Sara Holmgaard, now of Real Madrid was one of the standout performers in the Barclays Women’s Super League last season. The full back managed seven goal involvements, no Everton player managed more in the league. She also created more big chances and made more successful tackles than any other player in Everton blue. To top it all off she was voted Everton’s Player of the Season.
She has a penchant for an incredible goal too, scoring direct from a corner against Chelsea last season, and performing magic against Italy for Denmark too.
Don’t discount the chance of an identical twin link up this EUROs with sister Karen also in the squad. The pair combined to score last season for Everton including a huge goal that rescued a point for Everton away at Manchester City. Identical twin sister Karen also scored twice in the league after missing the first half of the season through injury.
The pair have a playful hijinks about their relationship too, in an interview with Megan Feringa, Karen told The Athletic, “the best was last year against West Ham. (Hawa) Cissoko was meant to mark me when we had a corner because Sara was usually on delivery. But I cam on late in the game, and Sara wasn’t doing the delivery this time, so we were both in the box. She ends up tracking Sara not me, and I ended up scoring.”
Denmark players to watch at EURO 2025
Amalie Vangsgard has played for some of the most prestigious clubs in world football. After moving on from PSG, Vangsgard joined Juventus, she helped the Italian side regain the league title they’d lost for a number of years. In a show of immense character, Vangsard scored the opening goal as Juventus knocked out her former club in the Champions League qualifiers last season. The striker, hailing from Pandrup, gives Denmark a height advantage and scored a composed winner in their recent nations league match against Wales. Another player that can support Harder with goals is Signe Bruun, still just 27, the Real Madrid striker has 24 goals for her country.
Unlike their male counterparts Denmark are unable to rely on the Schmeichel genes to get them out of trouble between the posts. Luckily this time it won’t be needed, as Maja Bay Østergaard will start in goal for Denmark. In August last year the goalkeeper excelled against Norrköping DFK for her club side Växjö DFF where the Dane made 10 saves and kept a clean sheet with Sofascore giving Østergaard a perfect 10/10 for her performance.
Katrine Kühl now of Roma plays effectively with the ball at her feet through midfield and has offensive awareness pivotally coupled with an ability to capitalise on that awareness. Affectionately known as “Ke” she was player of the match in the Danish cup final before she was 17 years old. Her career somewhat stalled after her high profile move to Arsenal. However a positive loan spell at Everton followed by a permanent move to Roma have helped put her on a return path back to her best.
Denmark stats to impress your friends
- Denmark won both the first unofficial European Championships in 1969 and the first unofficial World Cup in 1970.
- When Denmark won the second unofficial World Cup in 1971 they did so in front of a crowd of 112,500 spectators at the Azteca Stadium, Mexico. It remains to this day the most attended women’s sports event in history.
Denmark’s EURO 2025 Fantasy picks
Record against Denmark’s Euro 2025 group opponents
A 6-1 Nations League defeat to group rivals Sweden just before EURO 2025 could not have come at a worse time. It was a hammer blow to the confidence of Denmark against likely their fiercest rival to make the knockout stage. However the result happening a month out from the opening game does also give Denmark the chance to figure out why and how they were defeated, to try to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Better it happen before the tournament than on match day one of it.
Denmark have been a bogey team for Germany in the past, in 2017 it was the Danes who ensured that Germany would not win the title for a ninth time in a row. They dumped Germany out in the quarter finals to see Germany eliminated from the competition for the first time since 1995. But more recently at EURO 2022 they faced off in the opening game where Germany dismantled Denmark 4-0.
Their final group opposition will be something of a new nut to crack. Denmark and Poland have not met since qualification to EURO 2017 when Denmark won 6-0 at home and drew 0-0 away in 2016.
Goal for Denmark at EURO 2025
Expectations have fluctuated for Denmark under Jeglertz and recent poor form has not helped. The draw has not been kind but Denmark never cower in the face of a challenge. It is a tall order, but all of Denmark’s best moments in international football started out at the bottom of a similar mountain, they climbed them all the same.
