Denmark goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel playfully took aim at England ahead of tonight’s Euro 2020 semi-final showdown by questioning whether football had ever come home.

Hope and expectation are building as the Three Lions prepare to step out in front of a partisan Wembley crowd and attempt to reach their first ever European Championship final.

But Denmark goalkeeper Schmeichel is not concerning himself with that clamour for success and instead aimed a cheeky dig at England.

“Has it ever been home? I don’t know, have you ever won it?” the Leicester goalkeeper said, before being reminded of 1966. “Was that not the World Cup?

“I haven’t given any thought to what it would mean to stop England more than what it would do for Denmark.

“To be honest, I’ve focused very little on the England national team. It doesn’t really mean anything to me.

“It’s what it would do for our country back home. The joy it would bring to a country of only five-and-a-half million to be able to do something like that, or compete with the nations we’re competing with.”

Denmark have played against the backdrop of remarkable circumstances after Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest in their opening match.

“I think this group has always been special,” Schmeichel said. “We’ve said it for many years. It just came to light in a very dramatic way. But we have never been in doubt of the collective strength and the spirit we have in this team.

“It’s shown the world what we have. I think what it has done for the country of Denmark is that we’ve experienced something as a country quite shocking.

“That’s definitely brought the country very close together. The support we’ve seen back home is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my career, in my life, and unlikely to even see anything like it again.”