Rather than celebrate the fact that Denmark have reached the 2018 World Cup in Russia, one Danish journalist decided that he needed to take another dig at Martin O'Neill's side in the wake of their 5-1 win over Ireland at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday.
Almost a week after the first leg in Copenhagen, Kasper Lorentzen decided to go back and rewatch the match - stopwatch in hand - to note exactly how much time Ireland 'wasted' in what he believes was an effort to secure a 0-0 draw.
Published on TV 2 SPORT, the report - if you could call it that instead of a petty attempt to boast superiority despite comfortably winning the tie - claims that Ireland killed 22 minutes and 29 seconds of the game, not including substitutions.
The Irish players have been accused of using 'all the tricks' such as wiping a wet ball ahead of a throw in, or failing to quickly restart the game after a free kick was awarded.
The Irish only came to the Park to play 0-0 - or possibly get a lucky score. Every time the ball is out, they consciously spend a very long time performing the different standard situations.
While some situations are more natural to take some time, there are many little tricks that altogether end up being the big waste of time in a match.
For the defense of the Irish people it is said that when they spend a long time taking a corner, this can also happen from the Danish side, since all teams generally denote it as a very good scoring opportunity and therefore are careful to do it right. But the Irish use all the tricks in the book. Quite ordinary throws are used to wipe the ball and when the ball returns to the man to take a free kick, he accidentally does not see the ball coming back - and then it rolls past him, so time goes by.
All tricks are being used. And it's a ploy for the Irish when they have a goal kick, a free kick in the middle of the field or a throw-in close to the Danes penalty area, for here they can spend over 30 seconds each time - sometimes even up over a minute. The Danes try throughout the game to set the ball fast at play - except at corners.
Hmm...
Why would he expect Ireland to play with any sort of urgency in the first leg of a World Cup playoff? And, more importantly, why does it matter? Despite what he believes is a 'ploy' to make sure a match only actually lasts an hour, Denmark created enough chances to win the game.
We can accept scathing accounts of our play or a laugh at our expense, but imagining him sat there with a stopwatch in hand waiting for every Ireland set-piece begs the question, has Mr. Lorentzen nothing better to do?
You can read the 'report' in full if you speak Danish over on sport.tv2.dk.
