Christian Eriksen is conscious and “doing well under the circumstances” after collapsing on the pitch during Denmark’s friendly match against Ukraine on Sunday, the Danish Football Association (DBU) has said.
The fixture was abandoned after the 34-year-old midfielder, who plays for German side Wolfsburg, collapsed to the ground in the 65th minute of the match after appearing to hold his chest.
“Christian Eriksen is conscious and doing well under the circumstances,” a DBU statement read following the incident at the Odense Isstadion in Denmark. “The match has been called off.”
Denmark were leading the game, in which Eriksen started, 2-1 at the time of the incident.
“Christian is doing well and walked off the pitch by himself,” Denmark’s team doctor Morton Boesen said. “As I see it, the pacemaker responded as it should. He was briefly unconscious, but regained consciousness very quickly, and we were quickly in contact with him.
“He will now undergo further examinations at the hospital to determine what caused the incident. We are in ongoing contact with him and the doctors at the hospital.
“But Christian is doing well, and he asked me to send his regards to all the players and tell them that he was okay.”
Eriksen’s previous health scare
Eriksen also collapsed on the pitch for Denmark during the European Championship in June 2021, during his side’s opening match of the tournament against Finland.
The midfielder stumbled forward and fell to the floor as his team-mate Thomas Delaney took a throw-in.
He received emergency treatment on the pitch for 13 minutes. He was resuscitated and defibrillated, when it was determined he had suffered cardiac arrest.
That match also underwent a lengthy delay before being later restarted, as Finland won 1-0.
Medical specialists subsequently took the decision to fit a heart starter — also known as an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), is a small device that regulates abnormal heart rhythms — to Eriksen after undergoing different heart examinations, which allowed him to continue playing sport after a period of recovery.
Six months later, Eriksen began his football career at Brentford before spending three seasons at Manchester United and joining Wolfsburg last summer.
