The Danish post-mortem is well and truly underway after the country’s poor international break.
Losing to Poland, away from home, and, more worryingly to Montenegro in Copenhagen have left the country with a hill to climb if they want to qualify for the World Cup.
Eriksen is considered Denmark’s shining light and whether they fail, the light tends to shine most brightly upon him, although the criticism isn’t over the top this time.
A reality seems to be settling in that Denmark have a lack of leaders, and however good a player Eriksen is, he’s not a natural born leader. That of course isn’t his fault, he can’t tick all the boxes, but it leaves Denmark lacking.
Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet have an article on the lack of leadership, and of Eriksen it’s said he’ll ‘never be a leader’.
Whilst the country have a lot of great young talents coming through, and at 24 years of age Eriksen is hardly a veteran, it’s stated that to qualify for the World Cup, Denmark will need men, not boys.
Current captain Simon Kjaer is said to be too busy trying to sort his own game out, and simply doesn’t have an ‘aura’ around him.
The crux of it seems to be: ‘There is no Daniel Agger, who has charisma and exudes a certain authority. There was respect for him on a par with Peter Schmeichel and the Laudrup brothers.’
With such a leader, it would certainly make things easier for Eriksen, who could then concentrate more on his own game, safe in the knowledge the whole team wasn’t about to fall in on itself.
Daniel Agger is only 31 years of age, but has now retired from football after his body caught up with him. Agger has spoken repeatedly about playing through injuries and taking injections, which harmed his health. The downside of being a fearless leader.
It’s not for us to say, but maybe Agger could get involved with the Danish national set-up.
