Regardless of what took place on the field as the European Championships kicked off this week, the talk of the tournament this weekend was the health of Denmark’s Christian Eriksen. Denmark’s opening round matchup with Finland was halted at the 43rd minute when Eriksen collapsed and had to be medically resuscitated, resulting in a frightening scene on the pitch.
Speaking to the media on Sunday, Denmark’s team doctor Morten Boesen said Eriksen was “gone” before medical personnel were able to revive him using a defibrillator. When pressed for details, Boesen stated “He was gone, and we did cardiac resuscitation. It was a cardiac arrest. How close were we? I don’t know…We got him back after one defibrillator, so that’s quite fast. I’m not a cardiologist, so the details I will leave to the experts at the hospital.”
Christian had just fielded a pass, before falling face down to the ground as shocked teammates and UEFA personnel looked on. The quick thinking of on site medics who tended to the Danish midfielder for roughly 10 minutes before taking him off the field on a stretcher prevented a scary situation from having a much scarier result. Eriksen is currently in stable condition after he was taken to the hospital on Saturday.
The Danish Football Association provided this updated regarding Eriksen’s status several hours later:
UEFA postponed the match and held an emergency meeting between players to determine whether to continue or not. Teams elected to continue playing and Finland would go on to win the match 1-0.
Following the game, Denmark’s manager Kasper Hjulmand didn’t agree with UEFA putting it on the players to determine the course of action: “I know it’s very difficult.But looking back it was the wrong thing to make the decision between the two scenarios to the players in this case…Players were in a shock condition. Players who didn’t really know yet if they had lost their best friend. And they have to decide between these two things. And I have a sense that we shouldn’t have played…I know it’s difficult. It’s just a feeling I have. Maybe we should have just gone on to the bus and gone home and let’s see what the next days would have brought…That’s just my feeling now, but I think it was a very, very tough decision that the players had to try to make a decision. I know it’s difficult, but I have a sense that it was wrong for the players to be given this situation.”
Fans from around the globe have already weighed in on the decision to continue playing, with many condemning UEFA’s choice to not postpone the 2nd half until later this week. Denmark now has the next few days to try to mentally refocus on their match Thursday against a highly ranked Belgian team, fresh off a 3-0 thrashing of Russia. At the end of the day however, as every member of the Danish national team would tell you, they’re more relieved that their teammate will make a full recovery than the results of any game.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner