Bendtner participation a miracle, says Olsen

Denmark coach Morten Olsen said on Friday that he is hoping for a miracle when his team face Cameroon in a crucial World Cup Group E match on Saturday.

Star forward Nicklas Bendtner played for an hour in the Danes’ 2-0 loss against the Netherlands even though Olsen had said he wouldn’t be able to play at all due to a groin injury.

And Olsen said he’s hoping for another miracle against the Indomitable Lions.

“I believe that every player is important one way or another. It’s clear that Nicklas Bendtner is very important for us, we’ve seen that.

“He wasn’t 100 percent fit against the Netherlands and only played 60 minutes. He couldn’t play 90 minutes but perhaps he can play 90 tomorrow.

“Bendtner and all the medical team have done a wonderful piece of work, it’s a miracle that he’s able to play at least some part.

“But we have to be very cautious with what we can do with him in training, he can only train every other day.

“That’s the problem we have with him but we can live with that because it’s what we have to do to allow him to play.

“If he can’t play we’ll have to play in a different way but of course we’ve won matches without Bendtner before and we can do it again.”

A victory will be vital for both sides as they lost their opening matches.

However, while Cameroon were clearly poor against Japan in a 1-0 defeat, Stoke City goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen defended his team’s form in their opening match and said it is too early to write them off.

“We’ve only just started, I’ll come back to that when we’ve played the final,” he joked when asked if they had been under par.

“We have a good team, there were so many good things from the first match and things to improve on but we’ve only just started.”

He also revealed that Denmark will have to be wary of Cameroon’s individual talents.

“We expect strong, good individual players, I don’t think we’re going to be surprised because we believe they play in much the same way as other African teams,” he said.

“They have good individual players so we have to be careful but we have a good chance.”