Former Spurs midfielder Christian Eriksen pens note after sudden collapse on the field.
Christian Eriksen collapsed during Denmark’s friendly against Ukraine in Odense on Sunday. He went down, clutching his chest, in the 58th minute. Both sets of players immediately surrounded him. Medical staff reached him within seconds. He regained consciousness and walked off the pitch, aware of his surroundings and responsive to the people around him. The Danish Football Association confirmed he was conscious and that further assessments would follow.
The football world exhaled. Five years ago, at Euro 2020, Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest during Denmark’s group match against Finland in Copenhagen. An implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, a device that regulates abnormal heart rhythms, was fitted. He could not continue playing in Serie A due to Italian regulations regarding the device.
He joined Brentford (back then managed by former Spurs boss Thomas Frank), recovered, performed admirably, joined Manchester United, performed well enough, and continued playing international football for Denmark with the same technical quality and creative intelligence that had defined his career at every previous club.
His Instagram post after the Odense incident was brief. A photograph with a message that essentially communicated: I am fine, I am grateful, I will be back. The precise wording matters less than the intent behind it, which was to reassure the millions of people for whom Eriksen‘s health carries a specific weight it does not carry for most footballers. He understands that better than anyone.
“I want to let everyone know that I am doing well and that I am home with my family. As you can probably imagine, receiving a shock from my ICD has had a major impact on both my family and me, but I want to reassure everyone that this was a different situation from what happened in 2021. I am feeling good, and my recovery has already started. In addition to being grateful for the support and assistance of all the players and the medical team on the field, I am also incredibly grateful to the doctors who have cared for me and my heart over the years. Thanks to their expertise, my ICD did exactly what it was designed to do: protect me when I needed it. For now, my focus is on recovering, spending time with my family, going on vacation and playing football with my children.”
Safe and sound!
Tottenham’s response was immediate and warm. The club posted a message of support that reflected eight years of genuine affection. Eriksen spent 2013 to 2020 at Spurs, 305 appearances (his most for any club), scoring 69 goals, and providing 89 assists, the kind of creative output that places him among the most productive midfielders the club has produced in the modern era. The connection between the player and the club and its supporters does not expire upon departure.
The incident brought back deeply unsettling memories of Eriksen’s cardiac arrest during Denmark’s Euro 2020 match against Finland, which was truly tough for everyone in the wider footballing fraternity.
The Danish FA will conduct assessments. Decisions about his World Cup participation will follow those assessments. Whatever those decisions produce, they should be made with his health as the absolute priority.
The only thing that mattered was that Christian Eriksen walked off a football pitch under his own power. Everything else can follow.