Sir Alex Ferguson once said that one of Dutch football's problems was a tendency towards arrogance and Bert van Marwijk's squad arrive at the Soccer City Stadium with much to be arrogant about. Their qualification campaign was procession; their warm-up fixtures saw Mexico, Ghana and Hungary beaten by a collective scoreline of 12-3. Robin van Persie remarked that they fancied themselves to beat anyone. Van Marwijk appears quite content to allow Arjen Robben to sit out this fixture. However, the Danes might take heart from worries about the Dutch back four although there will not be much else to encourage them.

Morten Olsen can afford to be much less confident about his injuries than Van Marwijk. To truly compete against the Dutch at Soccer City, Denmark needed Nicklas Bendtner and Simon Kjaer to be fit, although it appears neither will play which leaves a lot riding on the shoulders of Morten's other high-class performer, Christian Poulsen, in midfield. Since arriving in South Africa, Denmark have struggled with the flight of the ball and with altitude, conditions they will encounter in Johannesburg on Monday and successive friendly defeats to South Africa and Australia do not bode well.

Holland do tend to have problems in major tournaments but they usually deal with the group stages fairly comfortably and they appear to have far too much firepower for Denmark. There is a danger of Dutch over-confidence - certainly their players are already talking about how difficult the knockout stage of the tournament will be ' but it is a slim risk. Denmark did well to qualify ahead of Portugal and Sweden but they appear to have used up a good deal of their luck in doing so. Verdict: Holland to win.