Brian Laudrup on Denmark's stunning success at EURO '92

Granted a place in the finals of the 1992 UEFA European Championship after Yugoslavia were forced to withdraw, Denmark achieved something that seemed impossible at the finals in Sweden.

Having scraped through the group stage, they eliminated holders the Netherlands in the semi-finals and then accounted for Germany in the final, Kim Vilfort notably coming back from tending to his terminally ill daughter to hit their second goal. Attacking midfielder Brian Laudrup tells the full story.

On Denmark's late call-up for the finals

I was just trying to get back from a very serious knee injury. My cruciate ligament was damaged in 1991, and I was trying to gain my fitness again. One day, I came back from a friendly, and my wife shut the door, and she said: “I just had a call from the Danish FA. You’re going to EURO 1992." I was like: "What? No chance." I said: "I'm not capable of playing 90 minutes right now. It will be a disaster. Denmark playing at the EURO… I mean, we will be slaughtered."

I called a few of my team-mates immediately and said: "Where are you?" "Yeah, I'm lying on a beach in Greece, in Türkiye, in Spain." And we were like: "But we have to report within two days because we've only got a week to prepare for the first game against England." It was like a fairy tale.

I remember the first time we went out on the pitch, and we gathered in a circle, and Richard Møller Nielsen, the manager, he stood, and we were all laughing and having a good time. It was more fun for us than perhaps real serious business. I remember he looked every player right in the eye and said: "We've got one aim when we go to Sweden and play [at] EURO 1992."

There was silence, and then he said: "We're going to win EURO 1992." And we all looked at him and laughed. We were like: "What is he on? I want some of that."

On eliminating the Netherlands on penalties to reach the final

If you look at the Dutch team back then, you had [Marco] Van Basten, [Rudd] Gullit, [Frank] Rijkaard, [Ronald] Koeman, four of the best players in the world at that time. And they were also the reigning champions. We were standing on the pitch and some players were looking like: "Pff, this is going to be easy."

The Dutch team were far more talented than we were, no doubt about that, but sometimes you can find that extra strength. It went all the way to penalties. We knew that if you have a goalkeeper like Peter Schmeichel, you've always got a chance. The only player where I thought: "He doesn't stand a chance" would be against Van Basten, and what happened? Van Basten missed.

On the final against Germany

We had a lot of injured players, we were afraid that we couldn't field 11 healthy players, so it was all about going out, trying to be as awkward [hard to beat] as possible, and hopefully people would say afterwards: "Great to have Denmark at the EURO. They didn't win it, but at least [they] made a huge impression." But it turned out differently.

The goal [John Jensen] scored in the first half, I think that made the difference. We were really, really tired at that time. If Germany had scored, we would have lost 3-0 or 4-0 easily. But I think that goal gave us everything.

We all knew Kim [Vilfort] and his lovely family. We knew about his daughter, as well, that she was very ill, and she became very ill during the EURO. At some point, he left the camp and went back home, with our blessing, obviously, and our support. But we didn't think he would make it back to the final.

But then, he came back, I think, a day before the final, played, got the goal, and told us all in the dressing room that it was his daughter who had actually persuaded him to play [in] that final: "Go back, get that trophy, and then come back to me."

On the celebrations 

We had only seen a few newspapers along the way that people were going absolutely crazy back home. When we flew back, we were accompanied by two air-force jets, making sure that we landed. We could actually see the pilots waving towards us. We flew around Copenhagen city centre, watching half a million people. Honestly, it was absolutely crazy.

I think it was the manager who said that when we left the pitch and went into the dressing room after the final, he said: "Sit down, everyone. This victory, this experience will change your lives forever." And back then, we were very young, and you think: "Oh, yeah, yeah. He's talking [nonsense]." But he was right. That was absolutely the pinnacle, the highlight of all of our careers.