[attach id=285456 size="medium"]Denmark’s Christian Eriksen stopped by Andrei Agius, the Malta defender, at the Parken Stadium. Photo: Paul Zammit Cutajar[/attach]

Watching from high up in the media tribune, I felt like I had been transported back in time.

Malta had already succumbed to a heavy defeat, going down 6-0 to Bulgaria seven months ago in another group match, but the team’s lifeless performance in Sofia was largely blamed on the weather conditions as the match was played on a snow-covered pitch and in gusty winds.

Tuesday’s 6-0 rout to Denmark was totally unexpected though.

Not that Denmark were not expected to win but certainly no-one imagined that they would hit six goals past Malta in an almost comically one-sided game.

Having followed the 1-0 win in Armenia with encouraging performances in the home qualifiers against Denmark and Bulgaria, Malta looked heading towards a positive conclusion to their World Cup qualifying campaign but such optimism proved misplaced.

What went wrong at the Parken Stadium? Everything.

Having stuttered through most of their qualifying campaign, Denmark reserved their best for the last.

It looked as though they had a point to prove, they were determined to show that they were deserving of a place in the play-offs.

Their flat-out, fluid approach had Malta in a tangle to the point that the game was as good as over after only 11 minutes, the time it took Denmark to surge into a two-goal lead.

Malta were all over the place, their travails to cope with the fast-flowing football served up by the fired-up Danes highlighting the technical and psychological inhibitions that have bedevilled our football for decades on end.

The Maltese players did try to keep their tactical shape but the pace set by the hosts proved too much for our players, especially on the wings where the hosts doubled up constantly.

As Denmark set up camp in Malta’s half, the wide players, the likes of Edward Herrera, John Mintoff, Alex Muscat and Clayton Failla, spent most of the game chasing their opponents while the two central midfielders, Roderick Briffa and Rowen Muscat, had to drop deep to provide an extra layer of cover for their overworked colleagues in defence.

With Malta playing catch-up, the service to the front duo of Andrè Schembri and Michael Mifsud was scant, bar a period in the second half when Ghedin’s men managed to create a few isolated attacks.

On the day, Denmark were a class apart and Malta would have found it difficult to keep them at bay even if our players were on top of their game.

There are days when you just have to hold up your hands and accept that the opposition is too strong. This was the case on Tuesday but it is pertinent to ask... could Malta have done better?

The answer is yes but poor positioning and lack of movement made their task impossible.

The performance in Denmark ruined the positive vibes elicited by the showings in previous qualifiers but coach Pietro Ghedin was magnanimous in defeat.

“The only thing that comforts me is the attitude of the players,” Ghedin told Times of Malta.

“We are always trying to rectify mistakes but Denmark were superior. Six goals is too much. We need to keep working hard to minimise the errors but our players gave their heart on the pitch.”

Ghedin admitted to being taken aback by the quality of Denmark’s game.

“I didn’t expect them to be so strong,” Ghedin admitted.

“It was clear that they wanted to score eight goals to make sure of finishing second. I was disappointed that, with only five minutes to go, the crowd were inciting their team to push for more goals.”

High tempo game

The age-old discourse about the difficulties encountered by Maltese players to cope with the elevated rhythm of international football was back in the spotlight after Tuesday’s hiding.

Ghedin conceded that his players could not match the pace set by the Danes.

“The tempo in international games is very high,” Ghedin re-marked.

“We suffered because our players are not used to mark very fast opponents. Denmark were very strong physically, their level is superior.”

Ghedin pointed at Sweden’s 5-3 home defeat to Germany to emphasise his point that even strong teams are prone to suffer a bad upset.

“There’s always pressure to play well but there are occasions when you come across a stronger team,” Ghedin said.

“Sweden are a very good team but they conceded five goals against Germany.

“Denmark were hungry to score goals, they wanted to win so convincingly. My only regret is the result... it was too heavy against us.”

Ghedin now has 11 months to address the weaknesses of his team and consolidate the positive points shown in previous games ahead of the start of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign next year.

“We will look to draft other players into the squad,” Ghedin said.

“We will analyse the situation with the MFA. We have done some good things during this qualifying campaign but a drubbing like this hurts a lot.

“I’m satisfied with certain aspects and not happy with others, not least the stupid goals we have conceded, especially at home when we also missed a number of scoring chances.”

As always, a shattering defeat like Tuesday’s rekindles the debate about the low standards of our football, given that the bulk of Ghedin’s squad and all players in the Malta U-21 team that crashed to a 4-0 defeat to Greece on Tuesday, play for domestic clubs.

Unlike most of his predecessors, Ghedin didn’t use the slow-pace nature of the BOV Premier League as an excuse. Instead, the Italian expressed optimism that the introduction of an extra foreigner this season would, in the long run, lift the domestic games.

“With the addition of a fifth foreigner, the level of the domestic championship has increased,” Ghedin said.

“The quality has gone up and that means our players need to step up their game. Seen in this context, there is a ray of hope that we can grow a little bit over the coming year.”

An improvement in the competitive and agonistic levels of the Premier League would surely benefit the Maltese players and consequently the national team but to make a leap in quality the ones coming up must be prepared to make sacrifices and join overseas clubs.

At the last Malta FA Council meeting, president Norman Darmanin Demajo spoke of his admiration of Iceland who, at the time, were on the verge of qualifying for the World Cup play-offs.

Malta’s failures to make a breakthrough in international football is often attributed to a limited pool of players but Iceland have disproved this theory as they finished second in Group E despite having a smaller population than ours.

But there is one big difference between the two countries... Iceland have more than 60 players engaged with foreign clubs while we only have a handful.