ROLIGANS-CALM, CALM

60,000 supporters are heading to Wembley today. Boris has offered his best wishes to the England team and 10s of millions will watch the game on ITV. It is England's first visit to a European Nations Final, so Gareth and his boys are now on the edge of making history. England play Denmark (DBU).

The DBU was formed in May 1889, earlier than any nation, other than those in Great Britain.

On 18 April 1897, an official game was played in Hamburg, when a select team from the Danish FA defeated a select team from the Hamburg-Altona FA 5–0.

The first three editions of the Olympic football event in 1900–1906 had an unofficial status, as the event was not yet open for national football teams to compete, and only had limited participation of three or four club teams from a few nations. Denmark received a special invitation for the 1906 Olympics to compete against one Greek club team from Athens and two club teams from the Ottoman Empire (Smyrna and Thessaloniki). The team to represent Denmark was compiled of players from the Copenhagen FA (KBU), and they won the event being awarded an unofficial gold medal. Two years later, in the first official football tournament at the 1908 London Olympics, Denmark won a silver medal. At the next Olympics, in Sweden, 1912, the team again won a silver medal (team in photo), which was followed by a golden era from July 1912 until August 1920, with Denmark ranked most of the time as number one in the world.

Although Denmark figured fairly prominently in the pre-FIFA World Cup era, international success would elude them for years from the first World Cup in 1930 and forward. Despite the country's ability to produce outstanding football talents, the Danish Football Association (DBU) only had the ambition (or economy) to send the national team to play friendly matches and in the regional tournament, the Nordic Championship from October 1920 until June 1948. 

When DBU opted to set their sights higher, they allowed the national team to start contesting the Olympics again, promptly resulting in a bronze medal at the 1948 Olympics. The team only reached the quarter-final at the 1952 Olympics. The DBU did not enter in 1956 in Australia. As football remained an amateur past-time, most of the best Danish footballers moved abroad to make a living. Due to DBU enforcing the rule to bar all professionals from the national team, it started to become difficult to assemble a highly competitive team.

Denmark experienced their next revival at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, with another set of Olympic silver medals. This was followed by another notable performance at the 1964 European Nations' Cup, where Denmark impressively finished in fourth place. However, this finish was considered by many as being more the result of a comparatively easy draw rather than a result of a well-playing team. In order for Denmark to qualify for the semi-final, they only had to defeat Malta, Albania and Luxembourg. In the semi-final, Denmark fell 0–3 to the Soviet Union then lost the bronze match to Hungary.

The strict rule of only allowing amateurism at the national team level was finally abolished by the DBU in May 1971, as they had acknowledged that change was needed in order to build a highly competitive team. In February 1978, when the DBU also decided to allow professional football to be introduced in the Danish leagues and the way was therefore paved for the national team to sign its' first sponsorship with the well-known Danish brewery Carlsberg. The new sponsorship enabled the DBU to hire the German, Sepp Piontek, in July 1979, as the first full-time professional coach of the national team. The full transition of the national team from amateurism to professionalism had now been accomplished and this would soon lead to a vast improvement in the performance of the national team.

According to Rob Smyth and Lars Eriksen, authors of a 2009 book on the "Danish Dynamite" team that would soon emerge:

That process of transition to professionalism, was accelerated by the fact that so many of the national team were playing abroad, and values learned there were slowly seeping in. ... Denmark got a headstart on football globalisation, benefiting from the enlightenment and experience that comes with playing abroad. At Euro '84 their 20-man squad contained 14 overseas-based players; the other seven teams had only five between them. At Mexico 1986, their squad included players from the champions of  Italy, West Germany, England, Holland and Belgium, BUT NOT in DENMARK.

Denmark is equally famous for its traveling fans, known as roligans The movement emerged during the 1980s as the declared opposition to football hooliganism. The goal of the roligan movement is calm, yet cheerful, support during the matches, as "rolig" means "calm" in Danish. The roligans have since developed an image of easy-going nature and rabid support, and are often considered amongst the world's best national team fans, along with the Tartan Army of Scotland. They were collectively given the FIFA FairPlay Award at the 1984 European Championships Just before the 1986 World Cup, the "Roligan" movement was organized in order to support the national team at the tournament.

Both, Casper Schmichael, The Dane's Goalkeeper and Jordan Pickford, Eng;land's GK. have been through the Darlington FC scheme in their earlier years.

Following the Eriksen disaster against Finland earlier in the competition, the Danes have a lot to spur them on.