GENEVA, Switzerland -- Among the throngs of Denmark fans filling the sun-soaked fan zone on Friday, there was one name that kept cropping up in conversation. Hours before Andrée Jeglertz's side kicked off their Euro 2025 campaign with a 1-0 defeat to Sweden, many supporters on the banks of Lake Geneva could be seen sporting shirts with 'Harder 10' on the back, in homage to their captain and poster girl, Pernille Harder.
"She is a role model," Michelle Geersten, one of the fans who has made the trip to Switzerland to support her country at this summer's tournament, told ESPN. "A lot of young girls in Denmark are starting to wear her name on the back of her shirt. They know who she is."
It is a testament to both Harder's talent on the pitch and appetite for change off it that she is now a household name back in her homeland. She has the superstar status that few female athletes were afforded when she was a child growing up in the small town of Ikast, when she was forced to leave local club FC Midtjylland because they had no women's team.
"There was no future for me at the club and when I was about 14, I had to move to another one an hour's drive away," Harder wrote in a piece for The Guardian last month. "Now, these girls are in here early -- maybe a little too early -- and are already started in small talent teams with high-quality training. They are being given an opportunity to develop in a way my generation was not."
In spite of the adversity Harder faced in her formative years, the 32-year-old has gone on to enjoy a stellar playing career and is widely regarded as one of the best attackers in women's football history. Even in the opening minutes of Friday's clash with Sweden, it was easy to see why she is so revered by fans.
There was barely a minute on the clock when Sweden won a corner right in front of their exuberant traveling support. Straight away, Harder set to work organising her teammates, shouting instructions and leading by example. When Denmark cleared away Jonna Andersson's cross and quickly launched a counter-attack, Harder immediately got her head down and sprinted the length of the pitch, ready to make herself available if her teammates needed her. It is that desire and tenacity that has characterised much of Harder's career to date and allowed her to win major silverware in three different countries for four different clubs.
Harder first exploded onto the scene during her time at Swedish side Linköpings FC and was named Danish Football Player of the Year in 2015. Two years later, she secured a move to German club Wolfsburg, where she won a league and cup double in four consecutive seasons. But it was at Chelsea where Harder truly rose to international prominence.
Upon signing for the Blues, manager Emma Hayes described her as "one of the best players in the world." Harder went on to prove just that, scoring 44 goals in 81 appearances across her three seasons at Kingsmeadow and winning seven major honours, including three Women's Super League (WSL) titles.
When a serious hamstring injury kept her sidelined for a lengthy spell in the 2022-23 season, Hayes dubbed her "irreplaceable" and, when it was confirmed Harder would be leaving Chelsea at the end of that same campaign to join Bayern Munich, her manager said the club would miss "her thirst for winning." Certainly, Harder's winning mentality is one of the many things that has endeared her to Denmark's supporters since the forward made her national team debut in 2009.
"She's always hungry to score, every time," Denmark fan Vivi Bertelsen told ESPN. "She's very attacking in her movements, and she always moves herself to make sure she's available at every moment.
"She's very fast and she's always looking for where the ball is. She is the leader of the team. She's so calm and she's a role model now for all of the other girls coming through. She's definitely someone who makes other girls want to play football."
Though Harder turns 33 later this year, her powers show little sign of waning. Last season, she scored 14 Frauen-Bundesliga goals for Bayern as they romped to the title and, for her country -- for whom she has scored 78 goals in 162 appearances -- she still remains a shining light.
"Pernille is a very talented footballer," Denmark manager Jeglertz told UEFA.com on the eve of this summer's tournament. "She's won leagues for the past nine or ten years with different clubs and she has developed into a dynamic footballer who can really be used in any of the attacking positions on the pitch.
"What's impressed me most about Pernille is how she's grown as a leader, not just thinking about what she does herself on the pitch, but taking responsibility for the team's performance, supporting players out on the pitch, stepping up when we're having a tough time and helping the team succeed. So, as a footballer, [she's] very good, but it's the leadership side that I've seen her develop the most."
In recent years, that leadership has notably extended beyond football. When a photograph of Harder sharing a kiss with her partner and fellow professional footballer Magdalena Eriksson went viral during the 2019 Women's World Cup, Harder found herself thrust into the spotlight for very different reasons. Both she and Eriksson -- who was on the bench for opponents Sweden at Stade de Geneve on Friday -- have become passionate advocates for inclusivity in football and have never shied away from acknowledging the importance of LGBTQ+ representation in sport.
"It was crazy, the picture was tweeted all over the world," Harder told The Guardian in 2019. "We've always just been natural, not so much thinking of being inspirations together, putting pictures up of each other or anything like that.
"But when we saw that photo and the comments around it, then it was really something; like: 'We're role models.' We had messages from a lot of young people, people of our age, but older people also."
Eriksson's Sweden teammates did well to keep Harder quiet on Friday evening, though she did offer a tantalising glimpse of her star quality when she rattled the crossbar with an audacious strike late in the game as Denmark chased an equaliser. Even when she suffered a blow to the mouth in stoppage time, she was back on the pitch as soon as possible after being led off with an ice pack pressed against her face. She has proven time and time again that she is capable of delivering on the big occasion, and fans will certainly be hoping she can do so again in Denmark's upcoming matches against Germany and Poland.
"Harder is so special because of her dedication to the game," Denmark supporter Rikke Bargholz told ESPN. "No matter if she's injured or anything, she's dedicated to the team which is really important. If Denmark have a successful tournament, she will be a big part of it."