When Ireland take on Denmark on Saturday, there’s every chance that former Sunderland team-mates James McClean and Nicklas Bendtner will be staring at each from opposite ends of the pitch.
Both players will be desperate to help their country to the World Cup and both have played major roles in helping their teams reach the play-offs.
No Irish supporters need to be told just how crucial McClean’s goals have been to Ireland in qualification but Bendtner’s return to prominence on the international stage came as a surprise to many as he won the penalty that helped his side to a 1-1 draw with Romania in their final group game.
That result made sure of the Danes’ progress to the play-offs and completed a return to favour for a striker who, a couple of years back, had fallen so far down the pecking order at Denmark that he was dropped entirely from a squad who were short of striking options at the time.
However, a time of refocus on and off the pitch saw him join Norwegian side Rosenborg and in his first season there, his goals have fired them to the league title with two games to spare.
With 18 goals in 29 games, the player who once drew guffaws when he described himself as ‘one of the best strikers in the world’ may finally, at the age of 29, be living up to some of his earlier promise.
It’s been a long road back for Bendtner who claimed that prior to his Rosenborg move, that he had considered walking away from the game entirely.
"Before I came here I did not want to play football anymore. I had trouble figuring out what had gone wrong," he said and admitted that he had struggled to come to terms with being more well known for his antics off the pitch than his football.
Bendtner’s gaffes are well known at this stage. There’s the €100,000 fine for dropping his shorts in a piece of guerrilla marketing for a bookmaker while on international duty. There’s the Lord Bendtner nickname, handed to him when he started dating Danish royal Baroness Caroline Luel-Brockdorff and then solidified when he attained a small plot of land in the Scottish highlands. There's the massive ego.
The striker had more serious problems off the pitch too and his brushes with the law included a drink-driving arrest, an arrest for criminal damage after damaging a swimming pool door in his apartment complex and an arrest for a brawl at a Tyneside Hotel.
Up until very recently, it seems that everyone’s been laughing at Bendtner rather than laughing along with him as the promise he showed early on, never materialised.
Having burst on the scene with Arsenal in 2007, much was expected of the young striker but despite his obvious confidence, it was stop-start for him at the Emirates.
Loan spells to Birmingham, Sunderland and Juventus all followed to mixed results before he finally cut ties with Arsenal and moved to German side Wolfsburg in 2014.
It was during that two-year spell with Wolfsburg that Bendtner increasingly found himself hitting the headlines for his off-pitch antics rather that what he was doing on the field of play.
Despite a decent start to life at the Volkswagen Arena, things quickly unravelled for Bendtner as a series of disciplinary incidents saw him at loggerheads with the club’s management.
From turning up late to training to skipping supporters events to constantly posting pictures of himself alongside his Mercedes car, despite being warned by Wolfsburg that their sponsorship deal with Volkswagen prohibited that, it wasn’t long before Director of Sport Klaus Allofs made it clear that the striker had no future at the club.
Following his time at Wolfsburg came a miserable spell at English Championship side Nottingham Forest where, having been released by Wolfsberg, he joined on a two-year contract.
The Forest spell was perhaps Bendtner’s lowest career point, as he made just seven league starts in a six month spell, scoring two goals. Oddly enough though, those goals proved to be crucial to Forest’s Championship survival as they only avoided relegation to League One courtesy of a two-goal better goal difference than Blackburn Rovers who went down.
Bendtner’s career revival began in March when he left Forest for Rosenborg for an undisclosed fee. He hit the ground running with the newly crowned Norwegian champions, scoring on his debut and he looks likely to finish the season not only with a league winners medal but as the league’s top goal-scorer.
His form at club level led to a return from the international wilderness for Denmark and in September he made his first appearance for the national team as a second-half substitute in his side’s 4-0 World Cup qualification win over Poland.
Despite his fluctuating fortunes at club levels down the years, Bendtner has always saved his best for his country. Like his former Sunderland team-mate McClean he seems to find that extra level of motivation when wearing his national colours and he’s a player well capable of causing problems for Ireland’s defence on Saturday.
Averaging over a goal every three games for Denmark, the Rosenborg frontman has the strength and physicality to threaten Ireland in the air and he’s a player who gives the Danes an extra option up front with his ability to hold up the ball and bring others into the play.
Never short on confidence, Bendtner’s arguably in the best form he’s been in since first emerging as a young Arsenal player and the likes of Shane Duffy and Ciaran Clark will have their hands full against him on Saturday.
Let’s just hope they keep him quiet and he keeps his shorts on.
Live coverage of Denmark v Ireland on RTÉ 2 (7.25pm), live radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport and live blog on RTÉ.ie from 6pm.
