Christian Eriksen to complete football's greatest comeback - "I'd died for five minutes"
What's your favourite football comeback? Istanbul? Manchester United in Barcelona? That Sergio Aguero moment?
How about the one where the footballer who died at a European Championships returns to play in the same tournament three years later?
Christian Eriksen will step onto the field in Stuttgart on Sunday to do just that, as the Denmark midfielder completes surely football's most incredible comeback from June 12, 2021, when the world stood still as he collapsed on the pitch after suffering a cardiac arrest in Copenhagen during the group stage opener against Finland.
From what had initially seemed an innocuous tumble, fears grew, and led to captain Simon Kjaer and goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel rushing to console Eriksen's distraught wife Sabrina who had ran onto the pitch, with the Danish pair simultaneously breaking our hearts and filling them full of admiration at the same time.
The rest of Eriksen's team-mates - turned away from their colleague with a bewildered look on their faces and tears in their eyes - formed a ring of steel around him as he received treatment, and thanks to the miraculous work done by medics the midfielder had regained consciousness by the time he was taken off the pitch. He could breathe again, and so could all of us.
"It was weird, because I didn't expect people to send flowers because I'd died for five minutes," was the midfielder's fairly matter of fact take on it six months after the incident, and the operation which required him to have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) device fitted, something which forced him to leave Inter Milan as they are banned in Serie A.
Denmark's players formed a wall around Eriksen after he had collapsed
But after resuming his career at Brentford and then Manchester United, Eriksen is back on the Euros stage in Stuttgart, not quite as the central creative figure for Denmark any more, but still an important member of a squad the benefits from his experience, both in football and in life.
Perhaps partly inspired by Eriksen's trauma, the Danes rallied and reached the semi-finals at Euro 2020, where they were somewhat controversially beaten by England via an extra-time penalty.
They will have to go some to repeat that performance, but in Schmeichel, Kjaer and Andreas Christensen they still have those brave, admirable leaders of three years ago, joined by the raw talent of Eriksen's United team-mate Rasmus Hojlund and the midfielder Morten Hjulmand, starring for Sporting Lisbon in Portugal and no relation to manager Kasper.
Eriksen has recovered and will play for Denmark against Slovenia
Slovenia will be a test for the Danes, but one that they will expect to pass before their second group game against England.
Eriksen's mere presence will remind them, and us, that there is also a bigger picture in football though, and that the heroes aren't always the ones playing the game.
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