Euro 2020: Martin Braithwaite and Artem Dzyuba, the icebreakers of Denmark and Russia

To attack ! Still not qualified for the final phase, the formations of Denmark (4th, 0 pts) and Russia (2nd, 3 pts) face each other this Monday evening (18:00) during a meeting which promises to be inflamed. Victorious over Finland (1-0) in Saint Petersburg, the “Sbornaïa” approached the match with the best accounting situation: a victory guaranteed them a place for the knockout phase while a draw would be enough to have a favorable position .

Red lanterns before the third day, the Danes, beaten twice, must win and hope for a series of results to their advantage. “It’s incredible to have zero points after the quality shown in our first two matches. It’s up to us to change things and I have a good feeling,” assured coach Kasper Hjulmand. Since the shock of the cardiac arrest in the middle of Christian Eriksen’s match, against Finland (1-0 defeat) on June 12, the Scandinavian selection has shown unfailing solidarity. She relies on this state of mind to compensate for the absence of her conductor, who was to supply strikers Yussuf Poulsen and Braithwaite with balloons.

Tormented career

Against Belgium (2-1 defeat) on Thursday, these two stepped up their efforts, the first having opened the scoring, while the second found the crossbar for the equalizer ball at 2-2. “I had one of the scariest times of my life with Eriksen’s cardiac arrest,” Braithwaite conceded. The former Toulousain, now at FC Barcelona, ​​was the Dane who shot the most against the Belgians (8 times). He is also the one who has evolved the highest in the field, according to UEFA data.

His personal journey sticks to the image of a selection that never gives up. He himself spent two years in a wheelchair, aged between 5 and 7, due to Legg-Calve-Perthes disease (necrosis of the femur). At 18, while playing in Esbjerg, Denmark, a broken leg put another brake on his career: “I started to write in notebooks my personal and professional goals, my dreams. This injury, it was a blessing, in the end.”, he confided in an interview in April 2020.

Even at Barça, he had to fight to find a place in the prestigious Catalan club, where he arrived in February 2020 as the medical joker of Ousmane Dembélé and Luis Suarez. All competitions combined, he completed the 2020/21 season with 7 goals and 4 assists.

Sextape and Deadpool

Artem Dzyuba, captain of Russia, also embodies in his own way a team that is not afraid of anyone. With his large size (1.96m, 97 kg), the star of the Zenit Saint Petersburg with a clumsy gait acts as a control tower for his teammates, who use it as a fulcrum. That’s how Aleksey Miranchuk scored against Finland, after a one-two with the Moscow native.

At 32, Dzyuba hopes to become Russia’s top scorer in history during the Euro. He is only one goal behind Aleksandr Kerjakov’s total (30 goals). “Like every athlete, you feel the pressure, and that’s normal. Everyone manages the pressure in their own way. I’m a little nervous, a little excited too”, he explained before the defeat against Belgium (3-0). This record is also a way of offering a new regeneration, him the player with the reputation of “bad boy”.

In November, an intimate video of him, hacked on his phone, caused a scandal in Russia, prompting manager Stanislav Cherchesov to temporarily remove him from the squad. A low that preceded a high: in May, for the title of Zenit, he came to collect his medal disguised as Deadpool, the Marvel studios superhero with healing powers. The eccentric attacker explained: “Deadpool is regeneration: it’s all me”. With him, Russia can expect anything.