Denmark female coach Lars Sondergaard told his players on Thursday that it would be "a mortal sin" not to relish playing European champions England at the Women's World Cup.

With the majority of the Sydney crowd also likely to be behind Sarina Wiegman's side, Sondergaard said that his team was undoubted "underdogs" against "superpower" England.

Denmark is ranked 13th in the world to England's fourth, but he said on the eve of the match: "We hope we can spring a surprise.

"We have settled now, we have our first game under our belt, which has eased our nerves. "There's a World Cup every four years, you don't get many of these opportunities in your career," he added.

Talking to the media shortly during her pre-match press conference, Wiegman was asked about Sondergaard's appraisal that it was underdog versus superpower.

"Yes, I agree with that, but he wants to put us in that position too," said Wiegman, who has told her side they must be more ruthless against Denmark than they were in the underwhelming win over Haiti.

"We're always the team to beat, I've never experienced anything else," she added.

Similarly, Defender Lucy Bronze said that England was particularly wary of Denmark's versatile captain Pernille Harder, who spent three years with Chelsea before recently moving to Bayern Munich.

"She's got that quality on the ball that not many players in the world possess," said Bronze.

"We've seen it in the past few years -- she's been one of the best players in the world, not just for Chelsea but also when she played at Wolfsburg and for Denmark.

"She's a top player, but equally we've got many of those in our England side as well.”

The teams meet in Group D and are both on course for the last 16 after winning their opening matches of the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.