Football: the midfielder who returned from the dead
When Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest while competing for Denmark at last summer’s Euros, it seemed unlikely he’d ever play football again, said Tom Collomosse in the Daily Mail. The main focus after the horrifying incident – during which he later said he “died for five minutes” – was on enabling him to lead a “normal life once more”. To that end, he was fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), a device that detects irregular heartbeats and restores a normal rhythm via electric shocks. Extraordinary then that, seven months on, Eriksen is on the brink of a remarkable return, said David Hytner in The Guardian. Having been released by Internazionale in December – the rules governing Italian football don’t allow players with an ICD to compete professionally – he has now signed for Premier League side Brentford. His initial contract lasts until the end of the season, but it could be extended if “things go well”.
Eriksen is no stranger to Premier League football: the midfielder played for Tottenham between 2013 and 2020, so this is something of a “homecoming”.
Eriksen isn’t the first footballer to play with a defibrillator – Ajax defender Daley Blind had one fitted in 2019 – but such cases are very rare, said Sam Dean in The Daily Telegraph. And before now, no player known to have an ICD has played in England’s top flight. The challenges shouldn’t be underestimated: other footballers with pacemakers have spoken of how teammates go easy on them in training, limiting their ability to become fully matchfit. Yet the hugely popular Eriksen – who says he has “complete confidence” in his ICD – seems as likely as anyone to succeed, said David Hytner. And his ambitions aren’t limited to Brentford: his “dream”, he says, is to represent Denmark in the World Cup finals in Qatar at the end of the year.