Hosts look to bounce back against Belarus

Hosts Denmark will look to bounce back from their opening-day defeat when they take on Belarus in their second Group A game.

• Keld Bordinggaard's men suffered a 1-0 loss to Switzerland on Saturday and now need a positive result to rekindle hopes of progress. But in Belarus they will face opponents boosted by a 2-0 victory over Iceland that left Georgi Kondratyev's team top of the group.

• The Danes will hope to follow the lead of their class of 2000 who won the countries' only competitive meetings at this level in the qualification round. Dennis Rommedahl scored in both matches as Denmark prevailed 2-0 in Borisov – with Claus Jensen also on target – and by the same margin in Odense.

• Despite their false start, history shows it is not all doom and gloom for the Danes. In three of the past five UEFA European Under-21 Championships, the eventual winners lost their opening game – Netherlands in 2006, Italy in 2004 and Czech Republic in 2002.

• Belarus, for their part, will hope to avoid a repeat of 2004 when they beat eventual champions Italy in their first match but still headed home early.

• Denmark and Belarus have met twice in UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualifying, drawing 0-0 in Minsk in 2005 while Belarus won 2-1 in a mini-tournament in France in 2009.

• That latter result remains Belarus's only victory against Danish opposition at any men's international level.

• The teams for the former game, on 29 September 2005, were:
Denmark: Vang Larsen, Steenberg, Hamalainen, Andreas Hansen, Høegh, Laudrup, Pedersen, Povlsen (Lundgaard 66), Falborg, Thomsen (Hjort 78), Wass.
Belarus: Gulevich, Kulik, Radevich, Lyavoshik, Kurlovich, Kozlov (Polyakov 68), Gaev, Grechishko, Viskushenko (Zubovich 54), Bubnov, Vitus.

• Denmark and Belarus's only encounters at senior level came in UEFA EURO 2000 qualifying. After a 0-0 draw in Minsk, Jan Heintze's goal gave the home side victory in the Copenhagen return.

• A total of 11 games between teams from the two nations have been played in UEFA club competition, with Denmark holding a marginal upper hand with a record of W5 D2 L4.

• Several U21 players were involved as Danish champions FC København eliminated their Belarusian counterparts FC BATE Borisov from this season's UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, winning 3-2 in Copenhagen after a goalless draw in Belarus.

• Pavel Nekhaychik – a scorer at the Parken Stadion – featured in both legs along with Maksim Skavysh and Dmitri Baga. Denmark's Thomas Delaney and Mathias Zanka Jørgensen played cameo roles for FCK.

Denmark news

• Denmark coach Bordinggaard retained a positive outlook after the Switzerland defeat, saying: "We created the chances we needed to win the game and that's what we want to bring into the last two games. There is still a lot of football in this group to be played and a lot of chances for us, I hope."

• Nicki Bille Nielsen was the only Denmark player to pick up a yellow card against Switzerland and will miss their final group match if booked again against Belarus.

• Following their week-long training camp in Vejle, the Denmark squad moved to their Skørping headquarters, just south of Aalborg, on Wednesday.

• Forward Søren Frederiksen was ruled out of the tournament after suffering an injury to his anterior cruciate ligament in training. Uncapped defender Frederik Sørensen was confirmed as his replacement last Thursday.

• Midfielder Mike Jensen limped out of the 4-0 friendly win against Turkey on 6 June but was fit to start against the Swiss.

• The Denmark squad received a visit on Sunday from the Danish minister of gender equality, Lykke Friis, to help promote a government campaign against domestic violence against women. "Hopefully we can contribute to increasing the focus on this problem," said captain Andreas Bjelland.

• Christian Eriksen was interviewed on Sunday by two boys from Jyllinge Football Club, a club from the city of Jyllinge which brought a group of over 30 youngsters more than 300km to Jutland to watch the games live at the stadiums – bringing their school activities with them. "This is an exciting project for the boys," said Stefan Bendtsen, who is in charge of school activities for the U21 finals.

Belarus news

• Belarus coach Kondratyev fielded an experimental left flank against Iceland with full-back Denis Polyakov making his competitive U21 debut, while Aleksandr Perepechko played his first ever match for the team.

• Yellow-carded against Iceland, Nikita Bukatkin and Sergei Politevich will miss the last group game if booked a second time.

• Belarus captain Mikhail Sivakov was named the Carlsberg Sport Man of the Match, having been selected by the UEFA Technical Study Group.

• The senior Belarus coach Bernd Stange was at Aarhus Stadium for the game and also present in the stands was England U21 coach Stuart Pearce.

• On Sunday those Belarus players not involved against Iceland did some fitness work in the morning at their base in Sabro. The full squad trained in the afternoon in Lyseng.

• Midfielder Stanislav Dragun writes a blog on the goals.by sports website. He has praised the perfect working conditions here in Denmark and also said he was pleasantly surprised by the small number of Belarusian supporters at Saturday's game – who at various moments made themselves heard above the large Icelandic contingent.

• Midfielders Nekhaychik and Mikhail Gordeychuk were both recovering from injuries in the run-up to the finals and neither featured against Iceland.

• Belarus arrived in Denmark last Wednesday, setting up base camp in the Aarhus suburb of Sabro. They will train 15km away in Lynseng.

• Belarus had previously concluded their tournament preparations with a training camp in Germany, where they enjoyed 8-1 and 8-0 victories against local amateur sides. However, they lost Vladimir Yurchenko to a knee injury, prompting Perepechko's addition to the squad.

• Striker Andrei Voronkov joined up with the U21 side having featured in two UEFA EURO 2012 qualifiers in the past week. He played for 90 minutes in the 1-1 draw against France before coming off at half-time in the 2-0 win against Luxembourg.