Christian Eriksen’s miraculous return leading Denmark’s challenge to elite

19-Nov-2022 18:23:09 | Guardian

Denmark are a force to be reckoned with as pride, togetherness and skill have coalesced since their talisman’s cardiac arrest

Christian Eriksen has been back threading passes through Premier League defences for the best part of a year but there was still something sublime in the fact he was able to sit here, at a modest sports facility on the hazy outskirts of Doha, previewing a World Cup. The thought he might do so had, in the bluntest terms, not crossed anyone’s mind in the aftermath of his cardiac arrest last June but there is a tantalising sense the story may only be part way through.

Could Eriksen and Denmark go all the way? That is their intention in Qatar and it would represent a footballing, not to mention personal, comeback for the ages. It would also back up the progress of a team that hovers just below the established favourites but has shown enough, before and since the return of its talisman, to suggest the final step may be possible.