Matthijs de Ligt admitted it’s ‘not easy’ to tackle Christian Eriksen a year on from his cardiac arrest.
The Danish midfielder suffered the cardiac arrest during a Euro 2020 group stage match between Denmark and Finland last summer. He made a full recovery and he scored in his national team’s 4-2 loss to the Netherlands last night, 287 days after the incident.
Speaking in a press conference after the game, De Ligt noted the difficulty of facing Eriksen on the pitch.
“It’s not easy to tackle Eriksen, when he came on the pitch I got goosebumps. We are players but also human beings, in those moments you have to think about playing but it’s clear that we are all happy that Christian is back playing at this level.”
Eriksen was forced to end his time with Inter early as rules in Italy forbid players from taking part in competition should they have a pacemaker or defibrillator fitted. Other countries are less strict about this rule, so the Danish midfielder joined Premier League side Brentford on a free transfer back in January.
The images of the Dane collapsing on the pitch during that fateful group stage game deeply affected many and there was a huge outpouring of support for the player following that incident.
#DeLigt: 'Quando è entrato #Eriksen avevo la pelle d'ora, difficile entrargli in tackle' https://t.co/10tMY3DzUA pic.twitter.com/ZgVUHGAIGO
— calciomercato.com (@cmdotcom) March 27, 2022