It was not the final nor was it the most spectacular match of the tournament. But possibly the Denmark-Finland played at the Parken in Copenhagen on June 12, 2021, it ended up being the most remembered match of the last Euro Cup. Because that day, in a festive atmosphere, the best player of the Danish team, Christian Eriksen, fell collapsed on the grass and left the most shocking image of the event. From party to drama in the blink of an eye. Eriksen suffered cardiac arrest in the middle of the match and avoided death. “When I was in the ambulance and I was aware that I had passed it, I realized that I was dead for a few seconds,” the Denmark captain confessed months later.
“I was looking forward to playing the game at Parken, in front of our people,” Eriksen recalls. «Everything was as always. The adrenaline, the excitement. A lot of intensity, like in any other game,” comments the current Manchester United player, who this Sunday plays again in a Euro Cup final phase match, against Slovenia (6:00 p.m., RTVE). «I remember singing the national anthem. I felt good. There were no indications of anything. I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen, but it happened,” explains the 32-year-old footballer.
42 minutes into the match, Denmark’s number 10 collapsed on the field after returning a ball after a throw-in. He didn’t miss the pass. Few fail. But then he lost consciousness. “I remember that Maehle He takes a throw-in, the ball hits me and I pass it with my shin. I feel a small cramp in my calf and then, (snaps his fingers) I’m leaving,” the player himself said six months later on public television in his country. It was his first interview after the collapse and it beat all the ratings.
Simon Kjaer, formerly of Sevilla, was one of the first to understand that his friend was suffering from a serious problem. He summoned the doctors, gave first aid to Eriksen, organized all of his colleagues to cover the resuscitation work and consoled Sabrina, Eriksen’s wife. Within minutes, panic gripped Parken. But Kjaer He did not lose his nerve and acted as captain. He and his friend Eriksen were the leaders of that team. And today, three years later, they still are.
Because Eriksen, unlike the majority of professional footballers whose heart fails in the middle of a match, has not retired. He wanted to continue playing at the first level and he has achieved it. At that time he was playing for Inter Milan and underwent surgery to avoid future heart problems. The Italians did not allow him to continue playing with them after the intervention due to Italian legislation. He doesn’t allow it. But the Danish midfielder flatly refused to hang up his boots and he returned to the field 259 days later, defending the shirt of modest Brentford. After spending some spectacular months in the Premier League with Brentford, Manchester United signed him.
The circle will close this summer in Germany. It’s something like the dream ending for Eriksen, who will once again lead his team in a European Championship, without the slightest fear that what happened three years ago in that match against Finland will be repeated. «I’m not afraid of it happening to me again. People can stop worrying because I don’t plan to collapse again,” he said a few days ago, before facing his sixth major national team competition.
Eriksen, who was in the orbit of the real Madrid in the summer of 2020, he is possibly the Ajax youth player who has come the furthest in the last decade. He was in Amsterdam for three years and won 3 leagues and 1 cup. That 2010, in addition, he became the youngest debutant in the Danish national team since Michael Laudrup. Shortly after, Morten Olsen called him up for the 2010 World Cup. And he was the youngest player to participate in that World Cup in South Africa.
At 21 years old he was already playing in the Premier, in the Tottenham. And these two years at Manchester United he has become a luxury substitute. As Eriksen’s life is full of second chances, in this Euro Cup he has the opportunity to make up for what happened in the previous one and, in the process, get rid of the bad taste in his mouth. Qatar World Cup, where the Danes offered a disappointing performance. They lost to France (1-2) and Australia (0-1) and tied with Tunisia (0-0), being eliminated at the first opportunity. Now, the boy who loves football because his father was the coach of Middelfart G & BK, his hometown team, wants revenge on him.
