Pickford flies into the void
Just five minutes later, Damsgaard was aiming better. England’s Luke Shaw had fouled Andreas Christensen in midfield, but the free kick distance of a good 25 meters did not look overly dangerous. But the Danes did it cleverly, formed a kind of privacy screen with three players next to the English Wall and apparently irritated Pickford. Damsgaard hit the ball well, but also anything but unreachable – but England’s keeper flew into the void and grabbed past the ball.
The leadership did not give Denmark any rest. And England obviously needed that wake-up call. Finally the favorite got more train in his actions, players who were previously invisible on the offensive like Kane and Mason Mount now also took part in the game.
Don’t hold sterling twice
A change of position then threw Denmark out of order. Mount had moved from his playmaker position to the right flank in the 38th minute and actually deserved an assist with his precise cross. But Raheem Sterling managed from the very best position, not to hit either of the two open goal corners, but the body of the courageously rushing out Kasper Schmeichel.
England kept the pressure up at this stage and the Danes let themselves be pushed in too far behind. An opening pass from Kane into the barrel of Bukayo Saka exposed the weaknesses on the left defensive side a second time – and this time with serious consequences: Saka’s cross was about to push Sterling over the line when Simon Kjaer rushed up and became the 11th own goal scorer at this EURO.
Incredible own-goal record
The bizarre history of this phenomenon has thus been expanded to include another chapter: In all previous European Championship finals there had only been a total of nine own goals.
This hit didn’t do the game particularly well. It wasn’t quite the boring watching from the first half an hour, but it wasn’t a festival of strokes of genius either. The English only radiated danger when Harry Maguire screwed himself up at standards, Schmeichel had to direct one of his headers around the post with a class reflex (55th).
Rice, Phillips and Højbjerg strong
The fact that there was no clear scoring chance until stoppage time was due to the risk avoidance strategy of both teams. But it was also impressive how Kalvin Phillips and Declan Rice on the English side and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg on the Danish side repeatedly stopped the opposing attacks.
It was only in extra time that there was another goal risk, but Schmeichel parried Kane’s low shot brilliantly in the 93rd minute.
Sterling falls and is rewarded
England was now totally dominant, Denmark continued to withdraw. There was also no relief because the substitute Yussuf Poulsen stumbled every ball up front. In a duel with Kane in the Danish penalty area, the English then demanded a penalty, but Makkelie rightly gave a striker foul.
The Dutchman might still have this scene in the back of his mind when shortly afterwards Sterling penetrated the penalty area again via the left defensive side, which was criminally neglected by Joakim Maehle that evening. The city star took off theatrically when he may have felt a mini push from Matthias Jensen, but he kinked his lower leg as if he had been hit hard.
VAR does not intervene
What Makkelie claims to have seen in this scene will probably not be resolved. But apparently because of the gentle Jensen touch, the VAR department saw no reason to intervene. Schmeichel then even held the Kane penalty in the 104th minute, but smacked it so unfortunate that Kane only had to push the margin over the line.
A curiosity in the run-up to the scene: When Sterling penetrated the penalty area, he dribbled past a second ball that had accidentally rolled onto the field – Makkelie could theoretically have interrupted.
Flatter blinded with laser pointers
Then there was also the fact that Schmeichel was blinded with laser pointers before the penalty kick was taken. Whether he would otherwise have held the weakly shot ball is pure speculation.