Denmark’s former Manchester United and Tottenham midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed on the pitch in a match against Ukraine on Sunday, but was conscious as he was taken from the field by medics.
The incident happened during an end-of-season friendly between two sides who have not qualified for the World Cup. Eriksen, who suffered a cardiac arrest during a European Championship match in 2021, was quickly tended to by medics in Odense, while the referee abandoned the match early.
Players from both sides formed a ring around Eriksen while he was being attended to and he was eventually able to walk to an ambulance.
Denmark’s football federation said later that Eriksen was conscious and “doing well under the circumstances”, while the national team’s doctor, Morten Boesen, said the player was “briefly unconscious, but regained consciousness very quickly … and walked off the pitch by himself”.
After the incident against Finland in 2021, during which Boesen led the successful resuscitation effort, Eriksen was fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in his chest, which can reset the heart after a cardiac arrest. The device allowed him to resume his playing career at club and international level.
Speaking after Sunday’s incident, Boesen said: “The pacemaker responded as it should … He will now undergo further examinations at the hospital to determine what caused the incident. We are in ongoing contact with him and the doctors at the hospital. But Christian is doing well, and he asked me to send his regards to all the players and tell them that he was okay.”
Denmark’s captain, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, later told the Danish broadcaster TV2: “I turned around and saw Christian on his way to the floor, and we know a little about how he reacts, what that means. Everyone reacted super-fast and with respect. I can only compliment how much courage those who took care of Christian on the field had. The most important thing is that Christian is doing well.”
After recovering from the first incident in 2021, Eriksen told the BBC that he remembered “everything apart from the five minutes” he was unconscious, adding: “I remember 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.”
