Christian Eriksen is on the verge of returning to competitive football action for the first time since collapsing at Euro 2020, but there was a point at which the Dane thought he would never play again.
The former Tottenham midfielder revealed he had "died for five minutes" during Denmark's group game against Finland, with medics saving his life after he suffered a cardiac arrest during the game.
Eriksen returned to training in December after being fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), but left former club Inter Milan due to Italian regulations preventing him from playing with the device.
The 29-year-old joined Brentford in January, and will aim to make a Premier League impact with the London side just months after telling his partner he was adamant his playing days were over.
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Eriksen has taken things slowly since the cardiac arrest, and has revealed his girlfriend Sabrina Kvist Jensen had a big part to play after he initially told her there was "no way" he could see himself returning to the pitch.
“If Sabrina had said, ‘I don’t want you to play any more,’ this would be a very different situation," the midfielder said, as reported by The Sun.
“Of course, we have a trauma from June 12, 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.”
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 . . . ’”
“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’.”
It's been a remarkable journey for Eriksen since, with the next chapter set to begin when he steps out onto the field again with his new club.
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"I can't wait to get started and hopefully I'll see you all very soon," Eriksen said in a message to Brentford fans after completing his deadline day move.
"We have taken an unbelievable opportunity to bring a world class player to Brentford," Bees manager Thomas Frank said after being reunited with a player he coached more than a decade ago.
Frank was the manager of Denmark's under-17 side when Eriksen - then still part of Odense's academy - impressed at age-group level for his country.
"He hasn’t trained with a team for seven months but has done a lot of work on his own," Frank explained.
"He is fit but we will need to get him match fit and I am looking forward to seeing him work with the players and staff to get back towards his highest level.
“At his best, Christian has the ability to dictate games of football."
Reflecting on the support he has received from the football community and beyond, Eriksen thanked the "extraordinary" actions of doctors, friends, family and fans during a January interview.
"I've thanked the doctors, my teammates and their families in person," he said.
"But all the fans who've sent thousands of letters and emails and flowers, or who've come up to me on the street both in Italy and Denmark, I thank them all for the support I got from all over the world that helped me through this."
