Seventeen months after suffering a heart attack during Euro 2020, Christian Eriksen did what had seemed unthinkable at the time and walked out on to the pitch with many of the same Danish teammates who had stood around him collapsed on the turf, to play in the 2022 World Cup.
What is almost as remarkable as his appearance in Qatar, played in the sort of sticky heat that sucks at the lungs and pumps the heart, is that he arrives restored as one of the best midfielders in the Premier League. Arguably Eriksen is more complete than ever before, reinvented slightly as more of a tempo-setter at Manchester United but still carrying a gleaming arsenal of weapons, that flat missile of a cross as treacherous to defend as it ever was.
