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The footballing community’s love for Christian Eriksen, who collapsed on the pitch during Denmark’s EURO 2020 match against Finland, is coming through strong, especially from Eriksen’s current and former teammates. Last night, Eriksen’s Inter Milan teammate Romelu Lukaku dedicated the first goal of his brace to Eriksen, running to the camera and kissing it.
Today, we got something similar from Son Heung-Min. Sonny’s (obviously) not playing in the Euros, but South Korea was playing Lebanon this morning in World Cup qualification, a match that ended as a 2-1 win for Korea. Son scored the winner, a 65th minute penalty, and then ran to the camera to dedicate the goal to his friend Christian.
There’s no sound on this clip, but the two-three hand sign is Eriksen’s jersey number, and you can see Sonny saying “Chris, stay strong — I love you.”
It sometimes takes moments of near-tragedy like this to bring the fooballing world together, and we’re seeing that in the response to Eriksen’s medical emergency. Thankfully, Eriksen — who received immediate attention from his Denmark teammates and from medical professionals — survived what appeared to be a cardiac incident and is recovering in the hospital. I won’t speculate on what the future may hold for Christian, but it is wonderful to see his friends rally around him in what was one of the scariest on-pitch incidents I’ve ever seen.