It is fitting that Brentford, affectionately known in Denmark as “danserklubben” or “the club of Danes”, have been the architects of Christian Eriksen’s return to the national side.
Eriksen is in line to win his first international cap since his cardiac arrest against Finland in Euro 2020 when Denmark play the Netherlands on Saturday evening.
It will be a historic return to Johan Cruyff Arena, his former home ground with Ajax, before an even more emotional friendly against Serbia on Tuesday at Parken – the stadium where he “died” for five minutes on the pitch.
Having steered himself back into contention since his signing by compatriot Thomas Frank in January, with more passes into the final third than any other Bees player. Frank believes it would be “fantastic to see him play for Denmark again”, just as it was “a big milestone” for him to play professional football again at all.
For Denmark’s fans, more than 15,000 of watched in horror as Eriksen collapsed in front of them in Copenhagen, it will be a moment of triumph when he steps over the line.
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“So to see him back on the pitch is amazing. It was a big moment to see him back in the Premier League but it’s going to be very emotional to see him back in the national team.”
It’s a view shared by Magnus Hojer, chairman of Spurs Denmark, who followed Eriksen’s seven years at Tottenham.
“It means a lot, more than I can describe,” Hojer told i. “I have a lot of memories, but most of all it’s about Christian as a person. He was always fair, always trying to do his best and to deliver both on and off the pitch. He can pass the ball so smooth and look it so easy. He is a true gentleman – and a huge role model for me.”
Denmark boss Kasper Hjulmand says “the most likely scenario is that he starts on the bench against the Netherlands”, with the playmaker having joined the squad late after missing Brentford’s defeat to Leicester with Covid. After linking up with his international team-mates for the first time since June, he joined training on Thursday.
“I have been a fan of him my entire adult life,” Denmark fan Johan Bruun Kreibke tells i.
“I remember the sadness and the tears the moment he was lying on the grass. To see him bounce back from that in the Danish jersey would feel magical.
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“His entire stay at Spurs he was a joy to watch. Great composure on the ball and he could bite like a snake in the grass.”
Following his release from hospital last summer, Eriksen spent time back in the Danish city of Odense, where he was allowed to train with OB, a club he completed three seasons with as a teenager. Walking the streets, he was inundated with well-wishers and received countless letters and flowers in the post.
Fitted with an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), he was no longer able to play in Italy and his Inter Milan contract was soon terminated. The Premier League does not have the same regulations, but extensive checks were undertaken before the Brentford deal and in a recent interview on Danish TV, he did his best to allay fears about his comeback, insisting “my heart is not an obstacle”.
There are no illusions in south-west London about the role circumstance and fate played in his arrival at a newly-promoted club with a fraction of the resources of his former employers; the midfielder left Italy a Serie A champion and ended his last full season with Tottenham playing in a Champions League final.
Yet the Danish connection was an obvious pull. He had worked under Frank, once manager of Denmark’s U17 side, before and he knew international team-mates Christian Norgaard, Mathias Jensen, and Mathias Jørgensen well.
Mads Roerslev and Mads Sorensen both played for the country at youth level and he was not even the only Danish addition in the January window, joined by goalkeeper Jonas Lossl, signed on loan from Midtjylland.
Eriksen has scored 36 goals in his 109 appearances for Denmark; that he is on the verge of a 110th cap is nothing short of extraordinary. To be back, he says, is a “wonderful feeling”.
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By Mark Douglas, i‘s Northern Football Correspondent
It was, according to one of the people at the heart of the signing, the “most complicated deal in the history of football”.
Christian Eriksen’s return to the Premier League just eight months after he “died” for five minutes on the football pitch was more than two months in the making, starting with a speculative phone call in the hours following his release from Inter and ending with the most stringent medical in the competition’s history.
“Fans might look at it and think it was a matter of checking his heart, giving him a medical and getting it done but Brentford are in unchartered territory,” a source told i.
“It’s taken a long time – it wasn’t just Brentford who needed to be satisfied, it was the player and everyone around him and then the Premier League and the Football Association as well – who didn’t want anything to happen on their watch.”
What’s certain is there were other, “bigger” clubs who had lodged their interest. But Brentford’s commitment to Eriksen, the attention-to-detail in their plan to support the Dane on and off-the-field and commitment to ongoing monitoring, was on a different level from the tentative enquiries from “half of the Premier League”.
“He’s an elite player so every club in Europe where he could play has taken a look at it but it doesn’t surprise me he’s gone there. It’s a family club, they look after their players – that’s a reputation that goes before them,” one agent said of Brentford.
Whereas one or two clubs shied away when they realised the extent of the work that would need to go into supporting Eriksen, Brentford simply got to work.
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