Why Danes should celebrate not qualifying for the 2026 Fifa World Cup

This might seem counter-intuitive but I’ve picked the perfect time to become a supporter of the Danish football team. The Danes will not be participating in this summer’s World Cup but the sense of relief here in Copenhagen is palpable – people won’t have to stand for hours watching big TV screens on harbourfront lawns, in the rain with their red and white “clap-hats” and plastic beakers of weak beer. 

Instead, we can revert to the usual glories of a Copenhagen summer: harbour bathing, bonfire drinks on Sankt Hans evening and all the great festivals, from Copenhell and the Jazz Festival to Roskilde Festival. It’ll probably still rain but at least the evenings won’t end in bitter disappointment – the Danes’ track record in the tournament is even more miserable than England’s. And now, as the 23rd Fifa World Cup has kicked off, the massive gains to be had from simply opting out of the next five weeks of sport are beginning to dawn on me.

Through all the other World Cups of my lifetime, I have endured the pain of being an England fan: Bryan Robson’s dislocated shoulder, Gazza’s tears, penalty misses and the Germans – always the Germans. The worst thing of course has been the hope. The perennial delusion that somehow a second World Cup win is England’s birthright, that it is only a matter of time, perhaps this time, that football will be “coming home”, as that cringey lads-anthem has it.

This time, as a newly-minted Denmark fan, my thoughts are turning to all the work that I can make progress with instead of squandering so many hours on the sofa with my head in my hands; the hangovers I will escape; the penalty shootouts I’ll sidestep; the agony of the inevitable quarter-final defeat; the pain of watching the Argentinians lark about with the trophy once more or yet another ruthless German triumph. Not to mention the fact that, this year, the matches will take place at very unhelpful times for those of us living in Europe. Can an entire continent be jetlagged for a month?

Perhaps it would be different if I were, say, Ethiopian or Indian: nationalities whose teams have never played on the biggest stage. For those blessed peoples, the World Cup is a distant disturbance in the lower reaches of the news agenda every four years. But there is a genuine feeling here in Denmark that football fans – the famous Roligans (“rolig” means “relaxed”, the Danish fans are among the most good-natured of supporters, at least when abroad) – and the rest of the population, have dodged a bullet.

There is the Trumpiness of it all too, of course: the idea that even by watching at home we are somehow endorsing his regime. For many here in Denmark that would be enough to have them switching channels even if their team were playing. The global football association, Fifa, and its ghastly boss, Gianni Infantino, are little better when it comes to brazen corruption and moral decay.

So, no more vuvuzelas. No more monotone interviews with players who have had their personalities removed by intensive media coaching, no more octopuses predicting results or unwarranted hype about the Belgians. Thank you England – and goodbye. I genuinely don’t care if you go out in the group stage and I won’t be watching, even if you reach the final. I encourage you all to join me, come and support the Danish football team. You get to take the summer off and go out and do something useful instead.