The front cover of the Fifa brochure for this World Cup has a photograph of Nelson Mandela under the slogan “A time for Africa”. African teams have made a dreadful fist of this tournament, although Cameroon, who aimed 23 shots at Thomas Sorensen’s goal, should have taken something from this game.

As it was, they became the first team to be eliminated. Intervention from the players and the Cameroon FA had forced manager, Paul Le Guen, to reinstate Alex Song and to return Samuel Eto’o to a central striking role. But for some heroic keeping from Thomas Sorensen and some brilliant counter-attacks co-ordinated by Dennis Rommedahl and the returning Jon-Dahl Tomasson it would have worked.

Rommedahl and Nicklas Bendtner gave Denmark considerable hope they can beat Japan to qualify for the knockout stages but the loss of Simon Kjaer weakens an already fallible defence.