For a few horrifying minutes in Copenhagen, football ceased to be a game. It became a theatre of mortality. Christian Eriksen, a man in his physical prime, crumpled to the turf like a discarded puppet, his heart stopped, his future uncertain.
That he now recovers at home is a testament to swift medical intervention, a sliver of fortune in a world that offers no guarantees. But let us not be so quick to slap a happy ending on this story and move on. What we witnessed, in that frozen silence of 41,000 bewildered souls, was a memento mori.
A reminder that the gods of sport, so often invoked in victory, are capricious and cruel. We have become a culture obsessed with the illusion of control. We track heart rates, optimise diets, and medicalise every bodily function.
Yet a 29-year-old athlete collapses without warning. Mr Eriksen’s misfortune is a crack in our carefully constructed edifice of safety. It is the return of the repressed knowledge that we are, each of us, a breath away from oblivion.
This will, no doubt, prompt calls for more defibrillators, better screening, stricter protocols. All sensible, all necessary. But do not mistake them for a cure.
They are bandages on a mortal wound. The ancient Romans understood this. They had a slave whisper in a general’s ear during his triumph: ‘Memento mori.
’ Remember you must die. We have forgotten that wisdom. We have replaced it with the modern religion of health and safety.
And while I am glad Mr Eriksen is home, I suspect the true lesson of this event will be lost. We will watch the next match, cheer the next goal, and pretend that the abyss does not stare back.
