Matt O’Riley has been handed a massive incentive over the coming weeks with his case for a place in the Danish World Cup squad being put by his u-21 coach.
The midfielder started the year playing for MK Dons but a move to Celtic where he quickly became a key player has fast-tracked his prospects of booking a place in Qatar.
Denmark were one of the most impressive European qualifiers with Kasper Hjulmand having a fairly settled squad, kicking on from reaching the semi-finals of the 2021 European Championships.
With World Cup squads increased from 23 to 26 players there could be an opening for O’Riley who has the ability to come off the bench ad change the course of a match.
Jesper Sorensen has been working with the Celtic midfielder for the Danish u-21 squad and has been lobbying for his inclusion in the squad to Qatar.
Speaking to The Herald he said:
Kasper and I always discuss the players we have in the under-21s, and Matt is one of the highest profile players in our squad.
I think he has been doing very well. He has given us more than I ever expected. I know he is very ambitious, but coming into a new scenario with a whole new team, I think he has given us more than I thought he would and that has been very good.
I have spoken to Kasper about Matt and he is also following him. Matt has been progressing with the team all along since the first time he came.
It was difficult for Matt at first I think – though he might disagree – coming into a new environment where he had to learn new things and speak Danish, but he has such commitment that he wants us to speak Danish to him.
That helps him to learn much faster and catch up much faster, but he just wanted us to do things as normal.
He has blended in very well with the team and the guys, and he is clearly a very good player. And he is a very good person as well. He is so committed to his football, but he is also a very good teammate and he wants to help his teammates.
He is very open minded, and I can only praise Matt for what he has done, coming into a team that he doesn’t know and playing for Denmark. He has been a great representative for Denmark so far.
It would have been a difficult decision for him, because he had choices. It just speaks to the sort of person that Matt is, he’s very mature and he’s perfectly capable of making decisions like that and sticking to them.
I think that he is such a well-balanced person, he will have given it a quite a lot of thought before committing to Denmark, and that is very important to us. We don’t want people to shop around and then play for Denmark, you have to be committed to play for Denmark.
It’s a very personal thing, and I know that Matt was very proud when he made his debut. I hope that he is proud to represent Denmark and he is a very good representative for Denmark. I have only praise for Matt. It shows courage to step in and he really has that.
Impressing for Celtic in their Champions League matches could be enough to complete O’Riley’s journey from MK Dons to the World Cup Finals.