Christian Eriksen: Mixed feelings on a miracle
To me, perhaps more than most, the Dane seems extra-terrestrial by returning to professional football.
Considering the state of the world we could all use a miracle. Luckily enough, we know where to locate one this weekend. In West London, at 3 pm Saturday, Brentford host Newcastle United in the Premier League and a man who essentially rose from the dead is set to play.
A miracle may be hyperbolic to some, as will the resurrection line. However, when I speak of a miracle, I do not refer to Christian Eriksen being “gone from this world”, his words, for five minutes and getting shocked back into it. For me, the miracle lies with what appears to be an unwavering commitment to play at the highest level again.
For unaware folk, Denmark’s leading football light, Christian Eriksen, collapsed during a European Championship fixture against Finland in May 2021. He had suffered a cardiac arrest. The then-29-year-old was resuscitated in front of horrified fans, team-mates and loved ones, on the pitch at Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium
The fact Eriksen was saved was a triumph of medicine and a testament to the skillset, training and fortitude of those who dragged him back to existence. This is the part of the miracle I actually understand. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation maintained blood flow around his body whilst defibrillation shocked his heart back into rhythm. Of course, I am simplifying, but that’s the basics.
The miracle for me is that Eriksen has the mental capacity to play again just eight months later. To be honest, it scares the living shit out of me.
This anxiety is deeply personal for me. For all the many things I do not share with Eriksen about what he can do on a football pitch, we do have one thing in common. We have both collapsed on one.
It has happened to me on three occasions. Once, at 17, during a top-of-the-table clash between Theale Tigers and Rotherfield United. Then again at 31 and 32, on both occasions during training sessions here in New Zealand.
One thing I need to make immediately clear is that I did not suffer a cardiac arrest in any of these events. In fact, after extensive testing, although nothing has ever been ruled out, doctors have never found any tangible reason to believe the cause of these collapses is cardiac-related at all. My heart is fine, with no further treatment required.
But that does not stop the poison from setting in. The seed of doubt. The lack of trust. I can’t play a game of football now without thinking about it. A family history of heart disease doesn’t help rest my fretful mind.
Until recently, this was not just limited to playing football. Riding a bike, swimming at the beach, even making the bed. Anything which got my heart rate up would fill me with existential dread.
Luckily, I am getting better, although far from fixed. I still only ever manage to push myself to about 75 per cent effort, max, at football training. The niggling thought that something might be about to go mortally wrong plagues me.
But Eriksen, for whom it was an immeasurably graver situation than any of my three episodes, appears ready to push any of that poison to the back of his mind with his return to professional football this weekend.
"If there was any anxiety, I wouldn't go back. If I wasn't fully committed and felt like I am trusting of the doctors, trusting of my heart, trusting of my ICD in me, then I wouldn't go back. No, I feel 100 percent secure to go back."
- Christian Eriksen discussing his return earlier this month
To me, it makes him almost alien. Michael Keane could score a hat-trick of overhead kicks. Ben Mee could perfect a 25-yard Rabona into the top corner. Fraser Forster could slalom his way up the pitch and score a Maradona-esque masterpiece. Absolutely none of these fanciful predictions would amaze me more than Eriksen simply taking off his tracksuit jacket and stepping onto the pitch this weekend.
At 30-years-old, Eriksen simply could have stepped aside. Retired. Nobody would have begrudged him that. However, with the placement of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in his chest, Eriksen says he is ready to play. He even has his eyes firmly set on the World Cup in Qatar later this year.
I guess he is just trusting the medicine again. Considering it brought him back to life last year, that makes perfect sense.
But if Eriksen can actually overcome that mental block and play again, even if just for another 90 minutes, I will forever be in awe of him.
That, for me, is a true miracle.