After today’s play-off draw, the nation of Denmark is the only that is in the way of Ireland painting Moscow’s Red Square green and white this Summer.
Astonishingly, there are doubters and naysayers out there who actually believe Denmark are the better football team?!
Nonsense, we say. This game will be a rout, a complete no-contest. There are hundreds of reasons why we are by far the superior team but we’ve managed to whittle it down to just five.
1. We’re definitely the better island.
Look at her, she’s only beautiful.
While Ireland stands proud at the end of the Atlantic Ocean in all of its glory, Denmark is little more than a pretender in the world of Ireland.
Denmark is little more than a peninsula alongside hundreds of more smaller insignificant islands in the murky waters of the Baltic Sea and surrounding areas.
Sorry guys, as exciting as island hopping in Denmark may be to some, we’ll stick to one solid, beautiful piece land. It’s that united spirit that will see us break the Danes down piece by piece.
2. Guinness is far superior to Carlsberg.
When it comes to Denmark’s lager Carlsberg let’s just get one thing clear; it’s a nice beer.
There’s nothing wrong with Carlsberg but is it special? As special as Guinness? Not a chance.
It isn’t too often you hear someone walk past a pub and whisper to themselves “Jesus, I’d murder for a pint of Carlsberg right now.” It’s the beer that you’ll happily sip if it’s put in front of you, but it doesn’t have much going for it apart from that.
Guinness is different. It’s a national treasure for a reason. From the creamy head to the last sip that keeps you coming back for more, our stout beats the Danish lager every day of that week.
Denmark’s players will know that too. With that lingering disappointment in the back of their minds, the psychological advantage is already ours.
3. They don’t have Jon Walters at their disposal.
Kasper Schmeichel, Christan Eriksen, ‘King’ Bendtner; there’s no doubt that Denmark have some world-class players that we need to keep an eye on if we’re to pull through.
But they don’t have Jon Walters.
It’s hard to explain using simple words why Walters might be the best player the beautiful game has ever seen, and his skills are far too plentiful to list here.
We know he’s technically ruled out for the two qualifying other games, but we believe his sheer presence in the stadium will be enough to give us an edge.
The Danes will be looking over their shoulders for 180 minutes, so long as big Jon Walters is about.
4. We get the ride more.
Okay, this might not be technically true but bear with us.
We haven’t seen the exact statistics of how much the Danes are pulling compared to us, but we do have one piece of evidence we can stick in their faces; the birth rate.
The birth rate of Ireland is 15.18 births per 100,000 compared to a measly 10.22 for Denmark.
More babies being born = more riding? We’re going to go out on a limb and say that is 100% mathematically accurate.
If that doesn’t give a football team a competitive advantage, what else could?
5. Nobody in the world can play badly as well as we can.
We haven’t really addressed the big, green elephant in the room when it comes to Ireland’s footballers.
We’re not very good. Not at all.
Watching a 90 minute match with these lads is masochism. They will frustrate you at their complete lack of ability to play anything resembling fluid football.
Luckily though, that doesn’t matter because we drag teams down to our low, low level. Germany, Wales, Austria, Italy; these are all teams that have looked absolutely inept when they came up against our paradox of our team.
After a fairly successful qualifying campaign, Denmark will be quietly confident they have more than enough quality to dispose of us.
They’re not ready though. They can’t play badly like we can. That’s why we’ll be in Russia next summer.