At 21:00 Beijing time on March 27, in the second round of Group H of the European Preliminary Round, Kazakhstan, ranked 115th in FIFA, broke out a big upset, scoring three goals in a row while trailing 0-2, and finally defeated Denmark, who was ranked 18th in the world, 3-2.
Denmark is not only a regular at the World Cup, but also reached the last four at the European Championship two years ago. Originally, they could easily pass against a fish-belly team like Kazakhstan, but they didn't expect to be upset in the end.
Atalanta forward Heilund, 20, scored 35 minutes before the first half to give Denmark a dream start of 2-0. And this lead was maintained by Denmark until the end of the first half. Together with a cap against Finland in the first round, Heuilund scored five goals in his first two starts of his national team career.
In the 73rd minute, Zhanudinov hit a penalty kick and Kazakhstan pulled one back but still trailed 2-1.
In the 86th minute, Taji Bergen scored a goal to equalize 2-2.
In the 89th minute, Embetov scored with a header to give Kazakhstan two consecutive goals in just three points to change the score from 1-2 to 3-2.
At that moment, the entire Kazakh team celebrated like winning the championship, the hero Embetov undressed and celebrated, and the 28,000 fans of the Stana Arena were completely overwhelmed.
This is Kazakhstan's fifth European Preliminary Tournament since joining UEFA in 2002, with the previous four best results being 10 points from UEFA 2020. In the first round of this European Qualifier, Kazakhstan's 1-0 lead was beaten by Slovenia's 2-1 reversal, but now they have upset Denmark to get their first win and crucial three points.