A year after escaping death, the Danish midfielder has begun life at Old Trafford – if he has his way, Erling Haaland won’t be the only Scandinavian making waves in Manchester this season
Words Johan Lyngholm-Bjerge
“The greatest comeback in Danish sporting history, no doubt. Watching his rise from being technically dead to pulling that famous red shirt of Manchester United over his head, it’s been remarkable.”
Lasse Voge, the chief football writer at BT, Denmark’s biggest sports daily, couldn’t have summed it up better. Fourteen months ago, the world watched aghast as Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest during his country’s Euro 2020 opener against Finland. His life was hanging in the balance back then, never mind his career. The chances of him returning to action appeared remote, even after his revival on the pitch that day at Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium. Months of silence and uncertainty followed, but the 30-year-old midfielder refused to give up. Now he’s a Manchester United player, having signed a three-year contract at Old Trafford.
“My brain screamed ‘hell no’ but my heart kept hoping,” says Voge about the possibility of seeing the playmaker run out in a football shirt again. “That June evening, most Danes accepted that his playing days were done. He’s a family man, he’d just had his second child. Why would he risk another collapse? He was 29 and had realised many dreams – winning 100 caps for Denmark, playing for Tottenham in the Champions League final.”
Eriksen had unfinished business, though, and more importantly an unfinished love for the game. Despite spending his life playing football, he’s maintained his childish love for kicking a ball – always one of the first on the training pitch, and last to leave. Eriksen has never been a playboy or somebody who lives for social media. He’s a guy from the small Danish town of Middelfart with a passion for his profession. Once the doctors gave him the green light to continue, quitting wasn’t an option. A few days into January, Eriksen made his decision public: with a World Cup looming at the end of 2022, he intended to lace up his boots.
When Eriksen signed for Brentford in January, it had been seven months since his sudden collapse against Finland. That summer, he’d been an Inter player and Serie A champion, clinching the Scudetto under Antonio Conte in his second season with the Nerazzurri after seven trophyless terms at Tottenham.
Eriksen’s title-winning campaign hadn’t come without its difficulties – he initially struggled to convi
