How the Evolution of Football Saved Christian Eriksen
We become one and Football takes the backseat when something traumatizing like Eriksen’s collapse happens. The well-being of players is of paramount importance to the fans, families, and governing bodies.
The world has seen it with the Covid-19 pandemic. We truly have an impressive, hard-working medical system that has given everything it could to save the world. Football is flanked by marvellous medical support who are present to make sure events like Eriksen’s collapse aren’t disastrous enough.
Any football player collapsing on the pitch is disturbing and we have seen so many of them succumbing and learned so much to make sure nothing untoward happens in the future. From Jimmy Thorpe to Fabrice Muamba, all have garnered much attention and their case has led to the betterment of the beautiful game.
What has football learned after such similar instances in the past?
In the year 1907, Thomas Blackstock, a defender for Manchester United sustained a head injury while heading the ball and collapsed. Footballers were not highly paid athletes, and there was no compensation for families if the player passed away playing for the club. This all changed after Blackstock’s death.
Billy Meredith, his teammate at Manchester United led the march to form a Players’ Union which would help footballers not take up odd jobs outside football by removing wage cap and can play football professionally, and clubs become responsible for the well-being of their players and the Union to look over such activities. Though not much changed in favour of the players, the Union was the foundation of something big in the years to come.
Probably the first major relief given to footballers was after the tragic death of Jimmy Thorpe, a goalkeeper for Sunderland in the 1930s. Post which new rule was enforced that a player cannot raise his foot when the ball was in total control of the goalkeeper in his arms.
Numerous such cases have led to changes in the rules of the beautiful game. Not so long ago, Petr Cech was forced to wait for an ambulance to come to the stadium to take him to the hospital after he had fractured his skull in a Premier League match against Reading in 2006, a complaint from Chelsea to the FA and the Premier League made it mandatory for the clubs to have medics and ambulance on standby for every Premier League game.
The result of this good practice was evident when Fabrice Muamba had a cardiac arrest while playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham Hotspurs in March 2012. His heart stopped for 78 minutes, it was God’s grace that he survived and is leading a normal life, unfortunately, he had to retire from football. Credit must be given to the immediate medical attention he got because of the heroes who suffered before him.
Almost 5 years after Muamba’s near-death experience, Ryan Mason had a clash of heads with Gary Cahill and almost lost his life because of that. This injury ultimately forced him to retire from professional football. Nonetheless, this injury called for a stricter protocol which made the Premier League instruct the referees to immediately stop the game if there is any head injury in the game. Mason’s case made us all focus on the severity of potential head injuries to footballers and making all the stakeholders cautious when it comes to protecting the football stars.
The Elite Club Injury Study
As football has kept evolving over the last three decades, both on and off the pitch, the world of football medicine has taken some leaps at the same time. In 1999, UEFA initiated a research project to capture injury rates, injury patterns over time, and increase player safety. This project, named Elite Club Injury Study (ECIS) involved 69 top-level teams spread across the European continent and captured the injury-related data from these teams for 18 seasons. As per the UEFA Elite Club Injury Study 2018–19 Season Report, it was observed that the 2018–19 season stated a decrease in injury incidence by 3% from when it started back in 2000–01 season. Now, this decrease can be factored to several reasons, better medical facilities, better rehabilitation facilities, improved diagnostic abilities, and much more but as a clear metric to understand the injuries sustained by the players, this can be considered as a success in the field of football medicine.
The intensity of football games has evolved drastically in the last decade. Players now are running more and sprinting more and perform more high-intensity manoeuvres in a game than they used to before, and if you put the 3% injury decrease into this context of high-intensity football, it’s even more admirable.
Any player before completing transfer between clubs or going for an international tournament to represent their country is required to undergo a thorough medical examination, where among other things a detailed family illness history is captured. When Muamba was diagnosed with Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a genetic heart disease, UEFA made it compulsory for clubs and countries to assess their players thoroughly along with any known genetic diseases, which might affect the players, before they step onto the field.
Long live Eriksen!
All these events involving multiple players across the previous decades, ultimately mattered when Christian Eriksen, unfortunately, collapsed on the field and was provided with the immediate medical attention he needed and was rushed to the hospital in no time. The Danish Football Federation later confirmed that Eriksen was stable and spoke to his teammates before the match resumed. Denmark went on to lose the game to a single goal scored by Joel Pohjanpalo for Finland, but Christian Eriksen was Man of the Match in a game which truly mattered, Life.
If you loved our content, subscribe to us on Substack at Box to Box. Till then, Adios!
