For ten minutes Saturday on a soccer pitch in Copenhagen, our games were just games again. This will happen when something as real as the end of a man's life intrudes on the festivities.
No, Christian Eriksen of Denmark didn't die after collapsing in the 43rd minute of a Euro Cup match between the Danes and Finland, but for ten minutes everyone in the stadium thought that's what they were watching. That's how long medical personnel performed CPR on Eriksen, while his teammates and their Finnish opponents milled about, transformed instantly from world-class adult athletes to anxious wet-eyed children.
Eventually Eriksen was revived and wheeled off the pitch to a local hospital, awake, alert and blessedly alive. The match initially would be suspended, but after a 90-minute delay the players returned to the field to a huge ovation.
It was likely as much an ovation for what their reappearance signaled, which is that they hadn't watched a man die right in front of them after all. He was alive and responding to treatment. The match, and the inherent make-believe construct of all our matches/games/tournaments/races, could continue.
Finland went on to win, 1-0. Eriksen was named the man of the match.
Not for anything he did on the pitch, of course. For living.
And for reminding us, for ten anxious and interminable minutes, that there is Game Life and there is Real Life. And that the former is not the latter, no matter how much it sometimes feels that way.
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