Ex-Inter midfield ace Christian Eriksen has reflected heavily on his life-changing health scare at EURO 2020, during Denmark’s tournament opener against Finland on June 12.
His near-death experience arrived in the 41st minute of play, when the Danish talisman collapsed on the pitch and had to be resuscitated before undergoing a surgery that involved the fitting of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).
The midfielder was later released by Inter at the end of last year on the basis of mutual consent since players fitted with the device cannot play according to Serie A regulations.
Brentford snapped at the opportunity to grant the Dane a new lease of life in his professional career and in his first interview since signing as a free agent, Eriksen has revealed the dreamlike experience in detail.
Speaking to BBC Sport in an exclusive interview, Eriksen flashed back on the memories of the five-minute ordeal that he barely remembers.
“I can remember everything apart from the five minutes. I was told afterwards it was five minutes, otherwise I remember everything – the throw in, the ball hitting my knee and then I don’t know what happened after. Then I woke up with people around me and felt the pressure on my chest, trying to get my breathing back, and then I woke up – I opened my eyes and saw people around me, I didn’t really understand what was going on.
“At that time I had no idea what had happened, then it goes through my head: ‘Did something happen with my legs? Did I break my back? Can I lift my leg up?’ – all small things I was trying to do to see what happened.
“Then in the ambulance I heard someone say ‘how long was he out for’ and someone said ‘five minutes’ and that was the first time I had heard I was gone,” he recalls.
He then went on to disclose that he never felt that his football career was over, despite the near-death experience.
He said: “To be honest, I didn’t really go down. Everyone was supportive. They said ‘you have an ICD but otherwise nothing has changed, you can continue like a normal life and there is no limit to what you want to do’.”
The former Tottenham Hotspur star is in line to make his second Premier League debut with Brentford after a few weeks.
He represented the Nerazzurri 60 times across all competitions since joining the club in 2019, scoring 8 goals in the process.