Christian Eriksen has made an emotional return to football with Brentford after the trauma of the Euro 2020 finals last summer when, in his words, he “died for five minutes” on the pitch. The Denmark midfielder suffered a cardiac arrest during his team’s opening game of the tournament against Finland in Copenhagen on 12 June and received life-saving treatment from medics.
Eriksen was shielded by a protective cordon from his teammates as he lay stricken and the images broadcast around the world were deeply upsetting. His partner, Sabrina Kvist Jensen, with whom he has two children, was comforted by the Denmark captain, Simon Kjær, and the goalkeeper, Kasper Schmeichel.
Eriksen said in an interview with the Danish TV channel DR1 at the start of January that he remembered the whole ordeal apart from those minutes when he was unconscious and “in heaven”. He thought he had broken his back when he came to and said he was ready to retire as soon as he realised he had been technically dead.
The 29-year-old’s fightback has been one of football’s feelgood stories. He was fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator device (ICD), which is connected to the heart by wires and sends an electrical pulse to correct irregular rhythms.
Eriksen was released in mid-December by Internazionale because the rules in Italy do not allow players with an ICD to compete. But he has worked to recover his fitness, spending some time training on his own at his old club Odense, and he was seen practising alone at Chiasso in Switzerland. Another former club, Ajax, said last Tuesday that he had started to work with their reserves, Jong Ajax.
Eriksen has been motivated by the dream of returning to the highest level and playing for Denmark at the World Cup finals in Qatar at the end of the year. He has taken another step towards it by signing for Brentford until the end of the season. If things go well, he could be offered a deal for the following season.
It represents what his agent, Martin Schoots, has called a homecoming because Eriksen spent six and a half years playing in London with Tottenham after signing for them in August 2013.
The Brentford director of football, Phil Giles, said that his club had “undertaken significant due diligence to ensure that Christian is in the best possible shape to return to competitive football”.
Eriksen is not in contention to make his Brentford debut in Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Everton because he has had to delay his arrival in London to comply with Covid entry rules. He was vaccinated only recently and must allow 14 days to elapse in order to avoid having to quarantine for 10 days in the UK. “Christian will travel to west London in the coming days and will not train with Brentford this week,” the club said.
Eriksen will not be the first footballer to have played with a defibrillator. Daley Blind, the Ajax and Netherlands defender, was fitted with a pacemaker after complaining of dizziness during a game in December 2019. He collapsed in a friendly in August 2020 but has generally enjoyed a safe return.
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Fabrice Muamba was playing for Bolton against Spurs in March 2012 when he collapsed and his heart stopped beating for 78 minutes. He made a full recovery, although he was unable to return to the professional game.
Eriksen has said he has complete confidence in the ICD – and his partner and family are supporting his decision to resume his career. “If Sabrina had said: ‘I don’t want you to play any more,’ it would be a very different situation,” he said. “We have a trauma from 12 June but since then we have found our bearings so that Sabrina is OK with me going to the gym for a few hours and to the practice field. She trusts that when I go, I always come back.”
Eriksen joins a host of his countrymen at Brentford, where there are nine Danish players on the books. The manager, Thomas Frank, is also Danish, as is his assistant, Brian Riemer. Frank worked with Eriksen in the national youth team setup. “He is fit but we will need to get him match fit,” Frank said.
