Olsen sees plenty to work on

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

In the battle between the bottom two teams in Group E, Denmark came out on top in a hugely entertaining encounter in Pretoria after fighting back from an early deficit to win 2-1. Cameroon captain Samuel Eto'o put his side ahead in the 10th minute but Denmark drew level thanks to Nicklas Bendtner in the 33rd minute before snatching the win through the impressive Dennis Rommedahl just after the hour mark.

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 had mixed emotions after the match, praising his injury-hit side's battling qualities but also lamenting the amount of mistakes they made during the encounter. The most obvious error was the one committed by experienced midfielder Christian Poulsen which led to Eto'o's opening goal.

"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 today I have to say, but they fought.

"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."

Denmark, who lost 2-0 to Holland in their opening match, were on the back foot straight away as Cameroon started well. Despite that though, it was the Scandinavians who had the first real chance when Rommedahl blazed over after breaking the offside trap in the sixth minute. Soon after that, Denmark found themselves behind when Poulsen's poor pass was intercepted and immediately resulted in Eto'o firing Cameroon in front.

source:http://www.fifa.com