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<\/p>\nBiggest smile on the face of a professional footballer this season? Christian Eriksen. Has to be, even before players and teams have scoped up all their medals and trophies. The occasion? Captaining Denmark and scoring a goal in their 3-0 win over Serbia at Copenhagen\u2019s Parken stadium in March 2022, a year after he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the same pitch in the Euros against Finland.<\/p>\n
What a football story! When he lay prostrate, surrounded by teammates to shield him, the Denmark team doctor confirmed that Eriksen\u2019s heart had stopped beating and thought that \u2018he was gone\u2019. Team medics began resuscitation procedures and revived the player before he was taken to hospital. \u2018I died for five minutes,\u2019 he later said. Fitted with a defibrillator that meant the player could no longer appear for Milan in Serie A, his immediate future seemed unclear. Fast-forward through rehabilitation and training and striving for match fitness and there\u2019s that beaming smile on our screens again. Signed by Brentford, he scores his first goal for them in a 4-1 thrashing of Chelsea in April. It could be a fairy tale. It\u2019s not, it\u2019s football, and his successful story of recovery has exhibited some of the finer things about \u2018the beautiful game\u2019, such as the sheer joy of playing. That last word resonates: \u2018playing\u2019. We \u2018play\u2019 football, a participant is a \u2018player\u2019, an individual might be a \u2018play-maker\u2019, and we\u2019ve just experienced the \u2018play-offs\u2019. Then there\u2019s \u2018the beautiful game\u2019. Played at its best it\u2019s like poetry, an art form. And it is, when all\u2019s said and done, a \u2018game\u2019, as are all sports. We talk of a \u2018great game\u2019 and \u2018did you see the game?\u2019.<\/p>\n
Part of the attraction of football is its simplicity. (Notwithstanding the complexities introduced by VAR technology!) As kids, a couple of jumpers or jackets chucked on the ground for goalposts, a decision about who could handle the ball as keeper and you were off, playing a game through the morning or afternoon and often finishing with the frisson of \u2018next goal wins\u2019. Simple and fun! Admittedly, today\u2019s professional game is several universes away from that childhood memory but the objective remains the same and so, too, does much of the language.<\/p>\n
When Cambridge university students dreamt-up some rudimentary rules for a game they played on common ground in the city called Parker\u2019s Piece (no connection with me!) they laid the foundations for football as we know it. I bet the students\u2019 main motivation for committing anything to paper was to share the idea of the game because it was fun to play. That was in 1848 and recognition of the importance of the Cambridge location to the history of football came in 2018 with the unveiling of a granite sculpture inscribed with their rules. Nothing would have indicated that it must be fun – you can\u2019t write that into rules! – but the spirit of football was early-on embedded in the terms \u2018game\u2019 and \u2018play\u2019 and surely joy would flow from that.<\/p>\n
Well, not necessarily. Professionalism and money and business models bring their own agendas. On the pitch, a scowl, snarl, or a cynical foul are all part of the modern player\u2019s repertoire. Team tactics of the \u2018don\u2019t lose at any cost\u2019 variety can snuff out any enjoyment in a game. So it\u2019s refreshing to be reminded of football\u2019s connectivity with its more entertaining side, when fans can watch a team whose instincts are to attack and where it\u2019s clear to see the players enjoying the moment. Enter Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n
Yes, success puts a smile on anyone\u2019s face and a spring in their step. Add style to success and you have something special. Forest are not Liverpool (yet) but some of their play since the arrival of Steve Cooper has been exhilarating and fans have been waiting a long time for a sniff of success or style. We\u2019ve seen the team\u2019s genuine appreciation this season (part of the team spirit) of what it is to play football, expressing individual and collective talents, in front of City Ground supporters.<\/p>\n
Smiling is infectious. When Forest finally overcame Sheffield United on penalties (a version of \u2018next goal wins\u2019) to book a place at Wembley for the play-off final, everyone could take their cue from saviour-of-the-night Brice Samba. Come his third save from the spot, his face was radiant with joy and it set the stadium alight with smiles and wild celebrations (and more than a few flares). Fans – plenty of whom have never experienced a Forest achievement on this scale – will remember the night for years to come, not least because it\u2019s the culmination of a special season on several levels.
\nWhich brings us back to Christian Eriksen. It doesn\u2019t have to be a life or death situation to evoke the kind of joyful response to success that we recognise and appreciate. He reminds us of the precious nature of sharing the simple enjoyment of playing. His smile on scoring those goals was also to celebrate the opportunity he had to show again what he does best and enjoys most: play the game of football. Team Forest, in their own way, have done something similar.<\/p>\n
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