Our team will be great, says a Dane

Denmark will beat England on Saturday. I'm sorry to break this news to you, but it's best you know now so you have a couple of days to get accustomed to it and prepare yourselves for the disappointment.

That's what I hope, at least. But, if I'm truthful, Saturday's match is going to be a hard one to call. On their present form Denmark are equally capable of beating every team - and being beaten by any team. And I think the same applies to England. They both have weak and strong days.

Our match against France yesterday was proof of that. We scored two good goals that the team had practised many times in training. Yet France also hit the woodwork twice, but in a very good game they just didn't have the luck.

Here in Denmark we are on a roll right now. We are a fairly laid-back people normally and not much arouses us. But when it goes well for our football team everyone is very happy. Yesterday I would say there was a nice atmosphere in the city rather than a passionate one. But, as we took the lead the passion increased and by the time we won there was a very strong, buoyant national feeling. We are only a little nation of 5.5 million people and we had not only finished top of our group, but we had beaten France, the world champions, with their population of 60 million. We felt proud and every Dane had a warm feeling around his or her heart.

Like in London, I imagine, flags were flying everywhere and the match was screened in all the bars and cafes. I could not say if Carlsberg broke sales records on the day - you'd have to ask them - but certainly a lot of beer was consumed.

The match kicked off at 8.30am local time and everyone was watching. I don't think any offices or businesses in Denmark started work until the game was over. I went to watch it at the sports caf? at the Parken, our national stadium.

Luckily I didn't go to the main city square, where thousands were watching the match on a giant screen. For one minute after Jon Dahl Tomasson tapped in our second goal, the police got a call saying there was a bomb planted in the square and they went down there and immediately evacuated it.

By the time they had searched, found nothing and given the all-clear, the game was over. God knows who made that call. He was obviously a madman.

Or possibly a Frenchman, I suppose.