Next Tuesday, 14th of October 2014, Denmark will go head-to-head with Portugal at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen for the Euro 2016 Qualifiers, on a match that the visitors need to win after their disappointing home defeat against Albania last month for the first round of the qualifying stage.

After a nightmarish stint at Brazil’s World Cup last Summer, Portugal continues to underachieve, as they’ve started their Euro 2016 Qualifying campaign by losing to Albania, a team that, in theory, is fairly more limited than the Portuguese squad. The defeat against the Balkanic country precipitated the departure of Paulo Bento, who was already under heavy fire both from the media and the supporters, and marked the start of a new chapter under the helm of Fernando Santos, who had left Greece after the World Cup.

The first match of Fernando Santos at the command of the Portuguese team ended in a defeat, against France, by 2-1 in Paris last Saturday, but at the end of the clash, the experienced manager was happy with his players’ positive attitude throughout the entire game, although he was a bit upset the “childish” mistakes that led to France’s goals.

Fernando Santos put an end to Paulo Bento’s worn out 4-3-3 system and experimented with a 4-4-2 diamond-shaped style against France, with Danny working as an advanced playmaker behind Ronaldo and Nani up in front. The team reacted well to the manager’s new ideas and displayed some very interesting moments of football last Saturday’s night.

On the match against Denmark, Portugal cannot allow any more slipups, otherwise they might risk being left out of the Euro 2016 tournament.

As for Denmark, they started the qualifying campaign by defeating Armenia at home, on a match where they experienced some difficulties to impose their game, especially during the time Mkhitaryan was still on the pitch leading his team. Last Saturday’s, however, the Danish side wasn’t able to get anything better than a draw from their trip to Albasan to face Albania. Denmark enjoyed from an apparent control of the match but it was the home side who scored first by Lenjani on the 38th minute of the first-half. The Danish side bounced back but only managed to get their equalizer on the last ten minutes minutes of the match by Lasse Vibe.

Portugal and Denmark have met several times throughout the last twenty years, but the last time they measured forces on Danish soil, the Portuguese team won the clash by 3-2. The home side might enjoy from a slight favouritism for the next Tuesday’s match, given Portugal’s less impressive form, but the game’s outcome is hard to predict.

Denmark

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - DWLWD

Portugal

Stats: W-1 L-3 D-1

Recent Form - LLWDL

Possible Line-ups

Denmark (4-2-3-1) – Schmeichel - Ankersen - Kjær - Bjelland - Boilesen - Hojbjerg - Kvist - Eriksen - Vibe - Krohn-Dehli - Bendtner

Portugal (4-3-3) – Rui Patricio - Cedric - Pepe - Bruno Alves - Antunes - William Carvalho - João Moutinho - Tiago  - Nani - Danny - Ronaldo

Prediction

Denmark 0 Portugal 1