Christian Eriksen was born in Denmark in a beautiful town called Middelfart. As a kid, the midfielder played for local teams Middelfart and Odense. When he made it big at the Ajax school, he was able to move to London, which changed the course of his career. Since moving to Tottenham in 2013, the Dane has become a star in the Premier League and a hero in his home country.

Goal and SPOX have talked to Morten Olsen, Martin Jol, and Glen Riddersholm, who were Eriksen’s managers in the past. Mario Gotze, who Eriksen was almost going to replace at Borussia Dortmund, as well as former teammates Urby Emanuelson and Lesly de Sa, also share their thoughts.

It’s the story of a quiet boy who starts out in a small town and grows into a powerful talent while making surprisingly sensible job choices along the way. Eriksen was not swayed by the glittering appeal of top teams like Chelsea. Instead, he chose the path that was best for him.

The Kιck-off

Yellow glitter is falling on the thin, blonde teenager’s shoulders. The Breda fans yell and sing loudly, making a lot of noise. Christian Eriksen looks up briefly at the source as yellow pieces of paper keep falling around him.

He sits down in the middle of Rasmus Lindgren and Kennedy and looks straight ahead. He doesn’t mind the noise from the people who back the other side. You wouldn’t have guessed that he was about to play his first adult game as a professional football player in a few minutes.

Just the day before, coach Martin Jol was thinking about putting him in the starting lineup. Even so, he was still surprιsed to see his name on the Ajax tactics board before the game.

“Christian was only 17, but he was already so good that I thought it would be wrong not to let him start,” Jol says.

“It seemed like Christian didn’t feel anything. He looked directly at me and said, “Okay.” I’ll play.’ Most boys his age would be scarҽd or think too much about it, but not Christian. The home people keep singing and yelling. So loudly that Eriksen later remembered being surprιsed by how strong it was. Today’s game is more than just a big step forward for the Dane.

Shortly before the game at the nearly full NAC Stadion, Luis Suarez hugs Christian Eriksen. At the time, Suarez was making his first appearance as Ajax captain. The Uruguayan international and present star of Barcelona, who has long hair and wears the number 16 on his shirt, tells him to keep going.

Eriksen nods to show that he agrees with what his boss says. Shortly after that, he hιts the ball for the first time. It’s the touch that rҽally kιcks off his adult career, and it’s also the start of an amazing and impressive rise.

During his time in the Netherlands, Eriksen was already a young player with a lot of promise. His early promise helped him become a great playmaker in Amsterdam and then in London. Goal and SPOX talked to the Dane’s previous teammates and coaches who helped him go from being a promising young player for Middelfart in Denmark to being one of the best players in the world.

The Beginning

A young child looks into the camera with wide eyes. In July 2016, Eriksen wrote on Instagram, “My story began in Middelfart, where I dreamed of becoming a pro football player. Now, my dream is coming true.”

Eriksen is the child in the picture. Middelfart is the place where everything started for him. Middelfart is on the island of Funen, which is in the southern part of Denmark. Middelfart was known as an important dock in the Middle Ages.

Today, however, the town has 15,000 people and isn’t even in the top 20 largest cities in the Syddanmark area. It is a quiet town. It has a zoo, a ceramics museum, a theater, a culture center, a small harbor, and a motorway bridge that is 1,700 meters long. And, of course, there are lots of sports fields there. The senior men’s team and academy at Middelfart train on eight different grounds. The club is made up of 600 kids and young adults between the ages of 5 and 17. The club’s senior team is currently in the third level in Denmark. Eriksen lived at the club for about ten years. His home was the endless square meters of green, the cafeteria, and the leisure center. From kindergarten to high school, he spent his formative years here. It was here that he learned the basics of what would make him one of the best playmakers of his time.

The Eriksens live right next to the club grounds, and Christian’s parents, Thomas and Dorthe, still live there. Christian goes home as often as he can, and he still talks to the people he grew up with. He started playing football when he was three, in the backyard of his parents’ house.

Eriksen says, “Football has always been a big deal in my family.”Along with both of his parents, his little sister also played football. His father was a sales boss in the car business. He was so good at football that he almost went pro.

Eriksen says, “I’ve always played football, right from the start. I played badminton and won a competition, but football was my main sport.

Even when Eriksen was very young, it was clear that he was different. In an interview with Jyllands-Posten, Thomas said, “Our neighbor’s son was about three years older than us, and one day he was just playing football with his friends.”

“Christian went over to join them. We could see then that he was just as good as someone twice his age.”

His best friend was the ball. Literally. “He slept with the ball in his bed until he was ten years old. Eriksen’s father says, “The ball was his stuffed animal.”

Eriksen’s father also taught him one of the most important things he still remembers about football: that you should always be humble and aware of your ego.

“When he was a child, his father taught him and told him that a single football player is worthless. Glenn Riddersholm, who taught Christian Eriksen when he was 17 and on the Denmark Under-17 team, says that it has stuck with him to this day.

Thomas coached one of his son’s best youth teams when they were young. Middelfart came in fifth place at a 2004 U12 tournament with the best teams in the country. In four of the five seasons, the team took part in the local finals and never lost.