The Danish View - Peter Schmeichel

Former Danish and Manchester United shot-stopper Peter Schmeichel speaking in Dublin ahead the World Cup playoff, and promoting plans from Carlsberg to support Irish supporters, reckons that De Rød-Hvide will probably pull off a result over the two games against Martin O’Neill’s men.

“Two weeks ago I was very confident,” said Schmeichel. “I thought we would be favourites to go through but as the game is closing in, you start to think about all the things that a player would think about - he doubts and how you approach the game.

“There are so many things. These are fantastic games to play but they're also very difficult games to play.

"I've also got personal interest in that my son's playing. I kind of feel I'm part of it. I have the same kind of nerves if you like, nervous is the wrong word, apprehensive. And the fact that I can't do anything about it is not helping!”

Peter’s son Kasper is the current Denmark number one goalkeeper with 7 of his 23 cap coming in the qualifying games during the campaign.

If Ireland are to get to Russia next summer for the World Cup finals they will most certinely have to try and shut down Tottenham Hotspur man Christian Eriksen, who is once again having a fine season in North London.

"He's evolved fantastically under the stewardship and guidance of Pochettino. He's made Eriksen, who was really good before he started to work with him, into a world-class player.

"He's a rare breed of football player. Someone who's incredibly creative, who can see passes no one else can see, his kicking is incredible and he works really hard on it as well his vision...

"You don't get many players like that. I have to say he's really stepped up, for Denmark as well."

The Tottenham midfielder has been the main man for Denmark to get into this play-off situation. He has had fantastic form since his side lost to Montenegro with Denmark going unbeaten for the rest of the campaign.

Schmeichel has had experience playing against Ireland during Jack Charlton’s time as Denmark came off winning Euro 92 in Sweden, to be drawn in the same group as Ireland for qualification for the World Cup in 1994.

“'93 and '94 - I think it's very different to the situation we have now, because when you look at the Irish team, you have no six-foot-four, six-foot-five guys - they're not there anymore. Niall Quinn, Tony Cascarino - they were there.”

“Niall scored. Kim Vilfort scored for us, then he scored. 1-1.”

“The team wasn't really Irish back then. Jack Charlton was very clever, and he got the pick of the best that didn't play for England. So he had the best kind of players back then.”

“You had players playing at the best clubs in England, whereas today, yes, you've got Premier League players playing for Bournemouth, Burnley, Southampton, but most of the players are from the Championship. Mind you, they're playing for good clubs - Wolverhampton - but it's just different, you know?”

The big debate in Denmark over the last few weeks has been about Åge Hareide men having to play the second leg away from home even though they are the seeded team in the tie. The Danish public are not being too pleased about the idea as they think that the second leg should be played in Copenhagen.

“The thing that we've discussed the most is; we've gone through the trouble of getting seeded, why are we not playing the second leg at home? Why did that have to be a draw as well?”

“Personally, I don't care, I've been involved with football all my life and played these kind of games where it's home and away, I cannot tell you what's better. I've no idea, because I've been on both end and got positive results. It all depends on what you do in the first game.”