Christian Eriksen has been speaking to Denmark’s Unisport about the beginning of his football career. It’s a really relaxed interview and the Tottenham Hotspur star was very happy to chat about his early days.
Asked his first memories of football, Eriksen said: “I’m really bad at having memories. If first I see a picture I remember what I’ve done, and I remember seeing a picture of when I was three years old standing next to a van and playing my first game.
The interviewer then asks Eriksen how he remembers his home town Middelfart, and whether he manages to get back there often.
Eriksen looks back positively on Middelfart and the impact it had on his football dreams: “The memories of course are very nice. My family still lives there so I still see them, mostly they come to London which is easier, but I’m sometimes there.
“One of my first memories is in the school yard, I was on the girl’s side against the boys, so it was me against the rest.
“In the team and the club, everyone met up and there was a big group of players who just loved playing football, so I think it was a very good time. I still speak to a lot of them.”
Eriksen was able to make friendships which he still keeps, and one of the Tottenham player’s old friends also became a professional footballer.
“One of them is also famous now who is Rasmus Falk Jensen who plays for FC Copenhagen, we’ve been following each other since we were 4 or 5 years old. A different path, but we’re still there.”
Falk himself was asked his memories of Eriksen as a child: “I know him from my childhood, Middelfart, we played together from many years. I have a lot of special memories from this time, he made a lot of assists and I made a lot of goals.”
At the age of 13 Eriksen left Middelfart to join another Danish club, OB, and Falk went with him. Then came approaches from other clubs, including Chelsea.
“I think the first shock I got was when I went to Chelsea, aged 14 or 15 I think, the first time I went.”
Eriksen said the security shocked him as he was a “little quiet kid from Middlefart”, and wasn’t used to training centres being closed to the public, with security measures to get in, and big stars around.
The now Tottenham player didn’t explain what later happened with Chelsea, but for whatever reason, he didn’t sign for the club and then had to choose his next destination.
The youngster ended up signing for Ajax at the age of 16 and learned about success: “How you win championships, I was at the clubs for one and a half years and then we won the first trophy.
“It had been 7 since the club had won a trophy before so you saw how much it meant to everyone at the club. It was a really, really big thing and anyone from Amsterdam still remembers that day.”
