Christian Eriksen was representing Denmark in the European Cup in Copenhagen when he fell to the ground. He began to have a cardiac arrest. The Danish players began to make a human wall to stop Eriksen’s tragic accident from being recorded on live television, but ESPN kept rolling and even filmed his wife crying, and refused to stop filming. UEFA  even made Denmark play two hours after it had happened. Denmark went on to lose 1-0  but their European campaign would not end in the group stage. With a 4-1 win over Russia, they sent themselves to the knockout stages where they went all the way to the semi-finals where they lost to England in Overtime.

Eriksen’s incident also raises a question. Are athletes being overworked? With a domestic league, two league tournaments, a continental tournaments, international tournaments, and their qualifiers players are being overworked. One would think an accident like that would cause change, but that is not the case. The President of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin, is even trying to have the World Cup be played every 2 years, and this upcoming World Cup will only give 7 days for the players to recover from their club matches to go and play for their country in the biggest tournament in the world in Qatar. Players are dealing with heart conditions now more than ever with notable players like Sergio Aguero, Charlie Wyke, and Fernando Torres collapsing on the ground during games or being forced out of soccer due to heart conditions, and if Ceferin gets what he wants the number of incidents like Eriksen’s will only increase.

Eriksen recovered shortly after the incident where he found out that if he were ever to play again, he would have to wear a heart starter device that would be implanted in his chest. The team he was playing for at the time was Inter Milan, but the Italian League did not allow that device, so Inter Milan was forced to release Eriksen. 

To stay fit, Eriksen trained with both his hometown club, Odense, and his old club, Ajax Amsterdam. When the January transfer window hit, Eriksen was rumored to go to several different English clubs, but he decided to go to the London based club, Brentford F.C.. Eriksen underwent a very extensive medical which he thankfully passed.

Eriksen will most likely be making his debut against Crystal Palace on Saturday to prove to the world that he can still play at the top level even after the horrific incident.