Kasper Schmeichel has said Christian Eriksen is in good spirits after visiting him in hospital and that the Denmark squad are determined to honour their teammate in their remaining Euro 2020 matches.
Schmeichel was one of the first on the scene to attend his stricken teammate, who collapsed in the 42nd-minute of Saturday's Group B match against Finland in Copenhagen.
Eriksen, 29, suffered cardiac arrest was treated by medical staff for around 15 minutes on the pitch, with Denmark team doctor Morten Boesen later admitting the player had "gone" and had to be resuscitated before being transferred to a nearby hospital.
“We’re still in the tournament. Now, we have to try to see if we can win this and do it for Christian and do it for all the fans who sat with us and were just as powerless in the situation as we were,” Schmeichel told broadcaster DR.
Denmark’s final two Group B games are against Belgium on Thursday and Russia next Monday.
“I have no doubt that this team has the unity, the strength to be able to come together and go out and do something special.”
Schmeichel, who could be seen consoling Eriksen's distraught partner alongside captain Simon Kjaer on the halfway line, said he had visited Inter Milan midfielder Eriksen in hospital and that it was "damn nice to see him smile and laugh" as he continues his recovery.
"It was a great experience and something that has helped me a lot.”
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Denmark players return to resume the match against Finland two hours after midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed in Copenhagen on Saturday, June 12. AP -
Denmark's goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel after resuming the match. AP -
Denmark's Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg gestures to the stands at the Parken Stadium as the team returns to the pitch to resume the match. AP -
View of the Rigshospitalet hospital, where Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen is being treated. Reuters -
A video screen is dedicated to Denmark's Christian Eriksen after the match. PA -
Denmark's Christian Eriksen is carried off after collapsing during the match against Finland at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen. Reuters -
A Denmark fan holds up a Christian Eriksen shirt AFP -
Denmark players react as Christian Eriksen receives medical attention, Reuters -
Christian Eriksen is carried off after collapsing. Reuters -
Denmark's players make protective shield as paramedics attend to midfielder Christian Eriksen. AFP -
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg as Christian Eriksen receives medical treatment. Getty -
Fans react after Christian Eriksen's collapse. AFP -
Denmark's players gather as paramedics attend to midfielder Christian Eriksen. AFP -
Denmark fans in shock after Christian Eriksen collapsed. Getty -
Jonas Wind in tears as Christian Eriksen receives medical treatment. Getty -
Denmark players head off the pitch as Denmark's Christian Eriksen is carried off. Reuters -
Finland players gather on the pitch. AP -
Russian fans hold flag reading "Health to Eriksen" during their match against Belgium later on Saturday. AP
Danish players expressed dissatisfaction on Monday at the position they were put in after Eriksen's collapse.
Players on both sides were visibly distressed with the Danes even forming a protective guard around Eriksen as he received treatment.
Governing body Uefa offered the players the choice of resuming the match on Saturday night or beginning again on Sunday at 12pm time.
However, in a new development, Schmeichel's father, Peter, part of the Denmark squad that pulled off a shock triumph at Euro '92, claimed on Britain's This Morning show that if the Danes did not pick one of the first two options then they would forfeit the match 3-0.
While the younger Schmeichel made no mention of that claim, it was clear the players felt they were left with little option but to play out the remaining 50 minutes at Parken Stadium.
“We were put in a position I don’t think we should have been put in,” Kasper Schmeichel said. “It probably required that someone above us had said that it was not the time to make a decision and maybe should wait for the next day.”
European football’s governing body wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the match would be restarted “following the request made by players of both teams”.
Players who have suffered cardiac-related illness
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Luton Town manager Rob Edwards gestures as his player Tom Lockyer receives treatment on the pitch during the English Premier League match against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium, in Bournemouth, England, on Saturday, December 16, 2023. Play was suspended after the hour mark as Lockyer fell to the ground with no other player near him. The match was later abandoned. Lockyer, 29, was rushed to a nearby hospital where the club said his condition was stable. AP -
Christian Eriksen collapsed on the pitch shortly before half time during Denmark's opening Euro 2020 match against Finland in Copenhagen. Danish medical staff later admitted they 'lost' Eriksen before reviving him and later confirmed the midfielder, 29, had suffered a heart attack but that there was 'no explanation' for Eriksen's condition. AFP -
Former Real Madrid and Spain captain Iker Casillas was rushed to hospital in 2019 after suffering a heart attack while training with Portuguese giants Porto. The club said Casillas suffered an 'acute myocardial infarction'. Though he made a full recovery, Casillas never played again and officially retired in August 2020. Reuters -
Dutch defender Daley Blind was diagnosed with heart muscle inflammation in December 2019 after suffering from dizziness in a Champions League clash with Valencia. He was subsequently fitted with an electronic device called the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD). The Ajax defender suffered a scare during a friendly match in August when the pacemaker he uses to treat dangerously abnormal heart rhythms failed and he collapsed again – although it was later described as a one-off incident. AFP -
Not long after helping Nigeria to an Olympic gold medal in the 1996 Atlanta Games, Nwankwo Kanu underwent a medical examination while at Inter Milan, which revealed a heart defect. The then 20-year-old underwent surgery to replace an aortic valve and did not return to the Serie A club until the following year. Getty Images -
Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe collapsed and died on June 26, 2003 during a Fifa Confederations Cup semi-final match against Colombia. An autopsy revealed the former Manchester City midfielder suffered with a heredity heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is known to increase the risk of sudden death during physical exercise. He was 28. AFP -
Even before he made an appearance for Bolton Wanderers Senegal international Khalilou Fadiga had collapsed prior to a match in October 2004. He had to be fitted with a defibrillator due to an irregular heartbeat. However, Fadiga returned to the Bolton squad in early 2005 and played in five games. AFP -
Leyton Orient footballer Andy Scott was forced to retire in April 2005, at the age of 32, after being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition similar to that of Marc-Vivien Foe's. PA -
Zaire-born English footballer Fabrice Muamba suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed during the first half of an FA Cup quarter-final match between Bolton and Tottenham Hotspur on March 17, 2012. The then 23-year-old received attention on the pitch from medical personnel before being taken to the specialist coronary care unit of the London Chest Hospital. He survived but retired from football subsequently. Getty Images -
Piermario Morosini collapsed during the first half of Livorno's Serie B match at Pescara on April 14, 2012. The Italian died at the age of 25 after suffering cardiac arrest. AFP -
Belgian defender Gregory Mertens suffered a cardiac arrest during a reserve game for Lokeren against KRC Genk on April 27, 2015. He died three days later age 24. Getty Images -
Former Newcastle United and Ivory Coast midfielder Cheick Tiote died on 5 June 2017 age 30 after suffering a cardiac arrest at a training session in Beijing. Getty Images -
Davide Astori died on March 4, 2018 in his sleep in a hotel in Udine prior to Fiorentina's match against Udinese. An autopsy showed the 31-year-old Italian defender died due to cardiac arrest. Reuters -
Papy Faty, a 28-year-old Burundian midfielder, collapsed and died on April 25 while playing a match in Eswatini – formerly Swaziland – for Malanti Chiefs FC. Faty had a history of heart complications having previously collapsed during a friendly match for a South African club in Johannesburg in December 2015. Getty Images
Denmark coach Kasper Hjulmand said on Sunday that he did not think that the players should have been back on the pitch, while Jonas Baer-Hoffman, general secretary of international players' union FIFPRO, said the decision should not have been made in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
"It would have been better to cancel the game in that evening. Take a bit of time, take a breath, look at it with a bit more distance, look at what are the options to carry on with the game or not, and if the game can't be replayed then I think also that would not be very important in comparison to what happened there to Christian," Baer-Hoffman told Reuters.
"The players were probably not given a real option in terms of taking a good decision that was in that moment in balance with where they were mentally," he added.
"There's a lot of lessons that need to be drawn from this," he said, adding that they would be conducting a review with Uefa.
Denmark striker Martin Braithwaite said on Monday: “We had two options. None of the options were good. We took the least bad one. There were a lot of players that weren’t able to play the match. They were elsewhere [mentally]. You could have wished for a third option in this situation.”
