Christian Eriksen joins Brentford as 29-year-old bids to resume playing career after suffering cardiac arrest at Euro 2020
By Jack Bantock, CNN
Christian Eriksen has signed for English Premier League club Brentford as the 29-year-old Dane bids to resume his playing career after suffering a cardiac arrest at Euro 2020 in June.
The former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder joins Brentford until the end of the current season having not played since he collapsed during Denmark’s game against Finland in Copenhagen last year.
The 29-year-old received life-saving treatment on the pitch and was subsequently fitted with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) device — a type of pacemaker intended to prevent fatal cardiac arrests by discharging a jolt to restore regular heart rhythm.
Serie A club Inter Milan — whom Eriksen had been contracted to at the time of the incident — announced in December that he would be allowed to move abroad in order to continue his football career, with the midfielder unable to play in Italy unless the ICD device was removed.
At the end of the year he was training with former club Odense Boldklub in Denmark, with Eriksen asserting in January that his heart was “not an obstacle” to his ambitions of a return to football and to feature at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
He will now have the chance to work towards that dream under his former Denmark Under-17 coach and current Brentford manager Thomas Frank.
“I am looking forward to working with Christian again,” Frank said. “We have taken an unbelievable opportunity to bring a World Class player to Brentford. He hasn’t trained with a team for seven months but has done a lot of work on his own.
“He is fit but we will need to get him match fit and I am looking forward to seeing him work with the players and staff to get back towards his highest level.”
‘We have undertaken significant due diligence’
Having joined from Ajax in 2013, Eriksen dazzled at Tottenham during his first spell in England — scoring 51 goals and assisting 62 across 226 appearances.
A move to Inter in 2020 reaped a first Serie A title for the Milan club in 11 years — ending Juventus’ nine-year grip on the crown — while his international career has seen the five-time Danish Footballer of the Year score 36 goals in 109 games.
He joins a Brentford side impressing in its maiden Premier League season, the west London team in 14th place and eight points above the relegation zone.
Brentford’s next Premier League fixture sees them travel to reigning champion and runaway leader Manchester City on February 9, with the potential for Eriksen to face his former club on April 23 when Brentford host Spurs.
Brentford Director of Football Phil Giles admitted that the transfer process for Eriksen was “more elongated than most” signings, given what happened to the Dane at Euro 2020.
“I understand that many people will have questions about the process,” Giles said.
“In order to respect Christian’s medical confidentiality, we won’t be going into any details. Brentford fans can rest assured that we have undertaken significant due diligence to ensure that Christian is in the best possible shape to return to competitive football.
“Now Christian has made the decision to sign for Brentford, all parties want to focus fully on football.
“We are sure that Christian will make a big impact at Brentford and on the Premier League between now and the end of the season.”
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