Christian Eriksen has joined his new Brentford teammates for the first time as he closes in on a miraculous return to top-flight football.
Just last summer, the midfielder suffered a cardiac arrest during Denmark’s Euro 2020 opener with Finland.
It was subsequently revealed Eriksen had “died for five minutes” with a return to playing football the last thing on anyone’s mind.
The 29-year-old returned to training with Inter Milan in December having been fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, but left the Nerazzurri due to Italian regulations preventing him from playing with the device.
That enabled to look for a new club, with Bees boss Thomas Frank using the relationship he built with his compatriot as a youngster to get a deal over the line.
Eriksen completed his first training session with Brentford on Monday and while his debut is still expected to be some time away, Frank has teased the signing as the club’s greatest in their history.
“It is potentially the greatest signing ever for Brentford…although I did speak to one fan who reckoned there was a player 70 years ago who was as good! I think that was a myth,” Frank said last week.
“With the story behind it, it will be an unbelievable day when he steps on the pitch for us. What happened to him last year was crazy. It's a miracle, really, and fantastic news.
“We have all seen him for years as one of the best midfielders performing in the Premier League and also for his international team.
“What happened to him last June was crazy, a real shock for all of us and so whenever the day is we see him out on the pitch again, it will be a big one.”
The former Tottenham midfielder stepping out on a pitch of any variety is more than the player himself could have ever imagined - admitting he told his partner Sabrina Kvist Jensen there was “no way” he would play again.
Speaking about the incident last month on Danish TV station DR1, Eriksen said: "I felt a small cramp in my calf and then I blacked out.
“When I woke up from the CPR it was like waking from a dream.I don’t remember a thing from when I passed out. I’m on my back when I wake up. I feel them pressing on me. I struggled to breathe — and then I heard faint voices and doctors talking.
“I’m thinking, ‘This can’t be me lying here, I’m healthy’. My first thought is that I broke my back. ‘Can I move my legs? I can move my toes?’.
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“I look up and see the fans singing. I get carried out to the ambulance. It’s not until I’m in the ambulance that I realise I had been dead.
“I’m thinking, ‘Keep my boots, I won’t play again’.
“I tell my fiancée Sabrina the same — ‘I’m not going to play again, no way’.”
