Olsen sees plenty to work on

Published: 20 Jun 2010 - 10:39:52

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Denmark coach Morten Olsen described his side's performance in Saturday night's World Cup 2-1 victory over Cameroon as "heroic" but admits they will need to improve massively if they are to make any further progress in the tournament.

Samuel Eto'o had put Cameroon ahead but Denmark drew level thanks to Nicklas Bendtner before Dennis Rommedahl snatched the win.

"We had far too many elementary mistakes that we made and we can't allow that from our players," Olsen said. "We must correct that, so I wasn't happy actually. Of course the players fought heroically, some of them didn't play well I have to say, but they fought."

The result means Denmark now face a winner-takes-all encounter with Japan in their final match to join group leaders Holland in the last 16, while Cameroon now have no chance of getting into the knockout stages.

Olsen added: "We had Nicklas Bendtner, Jon Dahl Tomasson and Daniel Jensen on the pitch, and those players haven't played much.

"But that's the way it is, that's why we had to fight so much. We had nothing more to offer, we have too many players who are injured or have been injured.

"So in that respect it was a heroic physical effort, but if we want to progress in this tournament we have a lot to work on. We know that very well."