Christian Eriksen’s comeback moves ex-national player Asamoah – for personal reasons. He once played with a heart defect himself and reports on emotional moments.
There’s a lot going on in football right now. The fans are returning to the stadiums, Ghana, the country where I was born, has qualified for the 2022 World Cup, at a Bayern game there are suddenly twelve instead of eleven players on the pitch and the seasons and competitions are slowly but surely entering the home straight.
However, I was particularly touched by what happened in Amsterdam and London last week. It had little to do with important points or athletic records, but it was still a win – and maybe even a little fairy tale, as footballers like to say. One with a happy ending, in this time that feels so poor in happy endings.
It was Christian Eriksen’s week.
I was overcome by tears
I’m sure everyone still remembers the shocking images when Eriksen’s heart suddenly stopped during a game with the Danish national team at the European Championships in June 2021. How his teammates formed a circle around him as a privacy screen. How rescuers revived the footballer.
Exactly 287 days later and with an implanted defibrillator, he made his comeback for Denmark in a friendly against the Netherlands at the end of March. He comes on in Amsterdam, where he played for Ajax for a long time, and scores straight away. The game is lost 2:4, but probably nobody cares about the result. Eriksen followed suit on the first weekend in April: he scored a goal that turned the away game in the Premier League for Brentford FC and led his team to a 4-1 victory at none other than Chelsea FC.
Triumphant comeback for Denmark: Christian Eriksen celebrates his goal in the friendly against the Netherlands. (Source: imago images)
I’m very happy for him, because I remember exactly the moment when he collapsed back then.
I watched the game on TV at home and I cried. It was extremely emotional for me as I’ve played my entire career with a heart condition. In such moments you suddenly realize how important health is, how quickly it can happen and how lucky you were that nothing serious had happened to you in all these years. You think of Christian Eriksen’s family, who must almost go mad with fear when the husband and father lie there lifeless on the ground. You think of your own mother. Mine once thought I was dead when she found me on the floor in the bathroom, but I just fell asleep there.
All those thoughts, the pictures on TV – and you’re sitting in the living room and just hoping that somehow everything will turn out okay.
The doctors said: You will never play football again
I wasn’t even 20 years old when it was discovered that something was wrong with my heart. After a game for Hannover 96 I got dizzy and started to sweat profusely. I thought maybe I hadn’t eaten enough and then it got better again. But the team doctor wanted to play it safe. Luckily.
1997: 18-year-old Asamoah (left) in the Hanover jersey against Jens Keller of Wolfsburg. Asamoah’s career could have ended early. (Source: Rust/imago images)
I was diagnosed with hypertrophic non-obstructive cardiomyopathy (HNCM), a congenital chronic thickened cardiac septum. Translated: You will never be able to play football professionally again. At least that’s what the doctors in Germany said. A world collapsed for me at that moment. I had staked everything on football and now my career was supposed to be over before it really got started?
It was only in the USA that specialists were able to help me, put the residual risk at less than one percent and prescribed me medication (some of which I still take to this day). Back in Germany I had to sign that I would bear the risk myself, then I was allowed back on the field – and there was always a defibrillator at my side. That was not common at the time. Today it is mandatory.
I still feel deep gratitude to this day
It was just as unusual for someone with something close to their heart to play professional football. At least many managers seemed to be unsure, because while there were previously a few offers that were on the table, many now distanced themselves from my commitment. It didn’t matter to Rudi Assauer and that’s how I ended up at Schalke 04.
Christian Eriksen seems to have had a similar experience. He wasn’t allowed to stay at Inter Milan so he’s now making his way back via Brentford. After his national team comeback, he said he now feels like a footballer again. So just like before, completely “normal”. I can totally understand that. At that time I thought a lot about it. Whenever I felt tired or flat, I wondered if it could be my heart. I asked myself whether I would be able to get my old performance and energy back despite the pills. But I got used to it quickly. I would say: my heart defect had no negative impact on my sporting career.
This is by no means a matter of course for me. To this day I still feel deep gratitude that I was allowed to return to the pitch. I swore to myself back then: You have the chance to live your dream and you will give something back! In 2007 I set up my foundation for children with heart disease. To give children hope – and maybe even the possibility that they too can achieve their dreams.
Committed: Asamoah a few weeks ago in the heart clinic in Duisburg. Little Jack (front) from Madagascar had to have heart surgery shortly before his 1st birthday. (Source: Gerald Asamoah Foundation)
Around the world, around 1.35 million children are born with a heart defect every year. Whether they survive depends largely on where they are born. A health-insured child in Germany has the best prerequisites. In many countries, however, the medical conditions are catastrophic – and treatment abroad is hardly affordable, especially for poorer families. It always depends on the individual case, but here in Germany we are talking about higher five-digit sums, and only for the operation, plus travel and follow-up costs.
The inhibition threshold is often high
Therefore, as a foundation, we finance the surgeries of children from abroad in Germany. That is our main task – and the need is huge: In the past 15 months, for example, together with other aid organizations, we have been able to help twelve children and make life-saving interventions possible.
Another important field in which we are involved: education. Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death in Germany. We support resuscitation courses or finance defibrillators for clubs, for example. The inhibition threshold is often high and many do not really know what to do. It is so important, because Defi and cardiac massage save lives. That’s how it was with Eriksen. And that’s how it was with my former fitness trainer at Schalke, Christos Papadopoulos, who suffered a heart attack and who was able to help with the defibrillator that was bought for me.
But sometimes the help comes too late; then the fairy tale turns into a real nightmare. In autumn 2021 we supported the operation of Edris from Afghanistan in a heart clinic in Duisburg. Everything worked, nobody had done anything wrong. But the little boy’s body couldn’t take the surgery. He died. At the age of six. His chances would have been massively higher if the same surgery could have been done years earlier. But that was not possible in his homeland.
It can save lives
It hit me hard and kept me busy for a long time. I had met Edris myself not long before and laughed with him. I wanted to see him again at the bedside after the surgery. Then to learn that he lost the fight is not easy to accept. But it motivates me all the more to keep going and to help where we can.
Cardiac arrest can happen to anyone. A professional soccer player like Christian Eriksen, a child from Afghanistan like Edris and every other person. So I can only encourage everyone: get checked, listen to your body – but also attend regular first aid courses and, if possible, donate or support organizations that help those who cannot do it themselves.
It might sound boring and uncool. But it can save lives.