Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 15:32• Mart Oude Nijeweeme • Last update: 15:49

Valentijn Driessen admires the way Simon Kjaer dealt with the situation around Christian Eriksen on Saturday evening. The captain of Denmark took care of his teammate and his girlfriend. In the meantime, he also took the initiative to stand as a team around the Eriksen lying on the ground. Driessen saw many differences compared to the situation around Abdelhak Nouri, who happened to the same thing in Austria during a training camp with Ajax in the summer of 2017.

Driessen compares the situation that occurred on Saturday evening during Denmark – Finland with Nouri. “I look at everything with the situation around Abdelhak Nouri in mind,” says the football chief of The Telegraph. “I saw those images then. That this all went so quickly and that the players reacted so quickly. The doctors and referees immediately realized what was going on. There was a certain form of panic, but in addition, everyone the right thing. So I believe it only took two minutes for him to be resuscitated.”

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Nouri was also resuscitated for minutes in 2017 when he suddenly went to the ground in a practice match against Werder Bremen. “Then I saw those images from Austria again,” Driessen continues. “That lasted and that lasted. You did not know what happened. This saved that boy’s life. And his captain (Kjaer, ed.) of course. That is a close friend of his and he seems to have his tongue out He also took the initiative to get around it. Whatever it was for, to keep the cameras away or to support him, that was a great initiative. He probably acted out of emotion.”

After a delay of almost two hours, the players of Denmark and Finland decided to finish the game. The Finns eventually won 0-1 with a goal from Joel Pohjanpalo. Not much later, Kjaer was taken to the side by the Danish national coach Kasper Hjulmand. Pierre Höjbjerg then also missed a penalty on behalf of the Danes. “I can well imagine that that made such a terrible impact that his head was completely elsewhere,” Driessen tries to explain Kjaer’s substitution.

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