If success has gone to Mikkel Damsgaard’s head, he’s hiding it well. Despite an explosive major tournament debut with Denmark, he exudes calm and poise. The holidays were nothing glitzy – “I was just home in Denmark the whole time with my family and friends” – and he came back to Genoa for pre-season training a few days early before getting unobtrusively straight back into the old routine.

Yet outside the just-turned-21-year-old’s orbit, the fervour is something else. The excitement around “Damsinho” before Euro 2020 after a promising debut season in Serie A with Sampdoria boiled over when his delightfully curled opener gave the home side the lead in the pivotal third group game against Russia.

It made him the youngest Dane to score at a Euros and it didn’t just send Copenhagen’s effervescent Parken Stadium wild. It gave Denmark’s tournament a belated, yearned-for lift-off after a traumatic opening. Christian Eriksen’s collapse had threatened to overwhelm the Danes and the tournament, though their dignity in the face of disaster won them much credit. “I would say I was pretty happy I didn’t play that game,” Damsgaard admits. “It felt like the game didn’t matter at all.”

He credits Kasper Hjulmand, the coach who gave him his debut for Nordsjælland at 17 and then his national-team bow at 20, with helping the team process the shock. “He was very understanding and listened to what we, the players, had to say,” Damsgaard says. “You could feel it really hit him too, so he was good at understanding what we needed.”

That night against Russia, Damsgaard says, was the moment where the team acknowledged the role of the Copenhagen crowd in their resurgence. “To give something back to the Danish fans who were there for us was such a good feeling,” he smiles, calling Denmark’s home games in the tournament a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience. “It was just allowing yourself to feel happy and excited to play a game like this in your nation. It was crazy to see all the support we got. It was one of the reasons we played such a good tournament.”

It snowballed all the way to Wembley, where Damsgaard’s dipping free-kick – the only direct one scored in Euro 2020 – stunned England and threatened a shock. “It was a great goal and when I scored it I really felt we could beat England and get to the final,” he says. The penalty won by Raheem Sterling in extra time for Harry Kane’s winner still stings. “It feels a bit sour because it feels like they got a penalty that wasn’t there,” he says. “If you had to pick a team to win, England were the best team on the night, but the way that we ended up losing the game felt pretty bad.” The overriding emotion, though, is optimism for Denmark’s young core before the 2022 World Cup. “We have a lot of big talent,” he says, “and prospects coming up. We’re looking forward with extreme confidence.”

Damsgaard’s ability to relativise may be intrinsic, or it may be conditioned by his football upbringing at Nordsjælland, the club just outside Copenhagen that he joined just before his 13th birthday. Owned by the Ghana-based Right to Dream academy, the club’s credo is to produce not just players, but rounded people. “I think we were pretty aware we were different,” he says of his teenage years at the club. “Of course now I’m super happy about everything I learned to be a better person and do stuff for others.”

Damsgaard believes that his ability to deal with cultural change in moving from Denmark to Italy at 19, mid-pandemic, was aided by his exposure to teammates from diverse backgrounds from an early age, with scholars from Ghana and Ivory Coast assimilating into the academy. “You learn more about the world at Right to Dream,” he nods. “You didn’t really know what was happening at first. You suddenly have 20 new guys in your locker room and it was kind of weird, but when you get used to it, and get to know them, they’re not different any more – they’re just your teammates. You understand the difference in cultures and feel that we’re all the same, even if we’re different.”

Even at Nordsjælland, Damsgaard was surrounded by barely-contained excitement. The club’s technical director (and now head coach) Flemming Pedersen once described him as “the greatest talent Denmark has produced since Michael Laudrup”, but the subject of Pedersen’s enthusiasm is able to take it with a pinch of salt. “I have a good relationship with him,” he says with a laugh, “and he says some crazy things sometimes. I was of course happy that he sees me as such a big talent. I don’t think I’m there at all yet but we’ll see at the end of my career. But he’s an idol for all Danish players. It’s hard to compare yourself to a player you look up to so much.”

Next aboard the Damsgaard hype train is Samp’s charismatic president, Massimo Ferrero, whose incredulous reaction in the stands at his new signing’s delicious debut goal for the club in last October’s thumping win over Lazio has become a popular meme (“It was pretty cool,” Damsgaard says with a laugh). Self-confessed Roma fan Ferrero told the Corriere dello Sport this week: “Damsgaard is the midfielder Roma needs. If they call me, we will reach an agreement.”

Damsgaard concedes a move is a possibility but is typically phlegmatic. “Whatever happens, I think I’m going to be happy,” he says. It will take more than a Euro for the ages and the prospect of a big step up in the European football pyramid to disturb this young star’s sangfroid.