The Guardian Footballer of the Year is an award given to a player who has done something remarkable, whether by overcoming adversity, helping others or setting a sporting example by acting with exceptional honesty.
Through the window behind Simon Kjær, a grey November afternoon is dimming and the lights across the Øresund strait are starting to flicker. Boats carry commuters home between Sweden and Denmark, or in reverse; the view is striking and simultaneously mundane, a confluence of inexorable nature and everyday business. Inside, Kjær is reflecting on 12 months in which barely anything came to feel familiar. “Positive, negative, we’ve been through everything,” he says. “All the register of emotions. We had it all.” A pause; a repetition. “We had it all.”
We are here, in this meeting room at the national team’s hotel in Helsingør, because Kjær has been named the Guardian’s Footballer of the Year for 2021. On 12 June he did something nobody on a football pitch would ever expect necessary: when Christian Eriksen, a close friend, collapsed with a cardiac arrest during Denmark’s Euro 2020 tie with Finland he ran to his aid immediately, putting him in the recovery position and starting the CPR procedure that ultimately helped save his life. As the situation developed, he formed a protective ring around Eriksen with their teammates and comforted Eriksen’s partner, Sabrina Kvist Jensen. Kjær is Denmark’s captain and led them with extraordinary strength and composure through an unthinkable ordeal.
The recognition has been overwhelming: name a year-end shortlist and Kjær has been on it, most notably finishing 18th in the Ballon d’Or ranking, while Uefa bestowed its president’s award on him and the Danish medical staff. He accepts our accolade with the same request that greeted the others: that it is taken as a collective honour, shared among the squad to highlight their response.
“I appreciate all the positive words and gratitude,” he says. “I’m honoured. But as I’ve always said, my reaction was impulsive and so was everyone’s. What we did, we did as a team. I would not have been able to keep my shit together if I didn’t have anyone to lean against.
“It was our friend: not a colleague, a friend. That made it so much more intense, and what we did was instinctive. I don’t believe you can prepare yourself for anything like it. I know, for myself, that I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without my team by my side. At the end of the day everything was only for one purpose and that was for Christian, his wellbeing at the time and his family.”
Eriksen is now healthy, which is all that has ever mattered. When the Finland game restarted with inordinate haste Kjær realised he had, as he puts it, “nothing to give” and was quickly substituted. For whatever it was worth, Denmark lost and the context makes what followed all the more jaw-dropping. Nobody would have criticised Kjær and his team for deciding a summer tournament was no longer for them; they would certainly not have blamed themselves. They took things day by day and found themselves powered by something that, even now, is not easily described. Denmark knew they were a good side but it took more than that to defy logic and reach the last four.
“You tried it all,” Kjær says of their attempts to restore a semblance of normality. “We allowed ourselves to train an hour, an hour and a half a day, and then get through it with all the bounces and difficulties that the days would bring.”
The first match-shaped hurdle was against Belgium on the same pitch at Parken, Denmark’s national stadium in Copenhagen, that had witnessed such trauma five days previously. They lost 2-1 but that was immaterial. Nobody who was present will forget that sun-drenched afternoon, which became a visceral affirmation of life. Amid a heady atmosphere of joy, relief, regret, gratitude and pride, Denmark tore into their opponents and could have scored five or six. Eriksen watched from the Rigshospitalet, a few hundred yards away. Forget the result: it became the match of their lives.
Quick GuideThe Guardian Footballer of the Year: the previous winners
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The Footballer of the Year award is given to a player who has done something truly remarkable, whether by overcoming adversity, helping others or setting a sporting example by acting with exceptional honesty.
2016 Fabio Pisacane - The Cagliari defender showed remarkable determination to reach Serie A after being diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome at 14. “It’s an illness that strikes one person in a million,” Pisacane said. "But it’s serious stuff once you have it."
2017 Juan Mata - The Spaniard used sport as a tool for social change. Members from the football industry in the Common Goal movement donate 1% of income to charity projects. "Some of the best ideas are simple ones and, when it comes to football, the power of the game is incredible," Mata said.
2018 Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw (pictured above) - The University of Tennessee striker overcame personal tragedy – she lost four brothers, three of them to gang-related violence – to guide Jamaica to the 2019 World Cup. “Remain humble, stay focused and just do the best you can,” is Shaw’s mantra.
2019 Megan Rapinoe The US World Cup winner used her stage to amplify the voices of others in the fight for equality, saying that there was no way she would visit Donald Trump at the White House because of his politics. “Everybody has a personal responsibility to do what they can to make the world a better place,” she said.
2020 Marcus Rashford The forward was honoured for forcing the issue of child hunger in the UK on to the national stage; persuading ministers to extend free school meals into the summer holidays; raising money to enable FareShare, the food charity he works with, to distribute nearly 10 million meals for children and families in need.
2021 Simon Kjær Before captaining Denmark to a Euros semi-final, the centre-back rushed to the aid of Christian Eriksen, who collapsed during the group-stage game against Finland – he put his teammate in the recovery position and began the CPR procedure that ultimately helped save his life. Once medics took over, he marshalled a protective ring around his friend.
It had been a case of putting one foot in front of the other. “I went on; warm-up; dressing room; walk out for national anthem; get through the national anthem; hear the whistle; take it from there,” Kjær says, slowly enunciating each stage. “I had no idea whatsoever what would happen. Even if I went into the game knowing I should play, at the end of the day I didn’t know if I would play. I had no idea how I would act, no one did, but I was OK. So we enjoyed it and the result didn’t matter, I can tell you that, 100%. It didn’t matter. Not at any point.
“The fans, the stadium, that support, the feeling inside, I think it describes what happened for Denmark overall that summer, for people who were there but also those watching on TV. How could we do that performance? I cannot find you explanations; I can only come back to the team, the support, the trust, the comfort we find in each other. Our bond was the only thing that gave us a chance to get back out on the pitch.”
Their participation in the tournament hung by a thread but now they knew they could perform. Russia, Wales and Czech Republic were all seen off in a string of adrenaline-fuelled, but coolly executed, victories that led to the semi-final at Wembley. Had destiny simply decided they would go all the way? Not quite: Kjær scored an own goal and, while the extra-time penalty that brought England’s win was marginal, Denmark were out on their feet by the end. The result was fair but it cast no shadow.
“If we hadn’t passed through the group stage I’d have been totally OK with it,” he says. “Sure, afterwards I might have looked back and still hoped. I’m still pissed about the penalty, and missing the final. But in the end it was secondary, and football has become secondary for me. It’s not as important as it was before.”
Although he would do anything to reverse the circumstances behind this realignment, Kjær has not fought it. He calls the football pitch “the place on earth where I feel the most comfortable”; it can never quite be the same place after Eriksen’s brush with death but it has become one of perspective. It has helped him compartmentalise: every drop must be wrung from the chunk of the day allocated to football, but time with his two children every morning and evening is sacred.
“When you have that experience, you carry it with you for the rest of your life,” he says. “But you learn from it, you take things out of it, and maybe that also allows me to play better football than before. I let myself enjoy it and that gives me a more relaxed approach; a more dedicated approach but one where, at the same time, I’m resting in it. I love playing football, always loved it, but I don’t have 10 more years so I have to appreciate the time that’s left.”
Those words soon carry added meaning. After the interview has finished Kjær graciously offers a follow-up conversation if any loose ends need tying, but neither of us really expects it to be necessary. Three weeks later, though, his fresh outlook is tested. In the early moments of Milan’s match in Genoa on 1 December, he collides with Andrea Cambiaso and is taken off on a stretcher after lengthy treatment. It looks bad and two days later the news is confirmed: he has required surgery to the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, along with a reinsertion of his medial collateral ligament, meaning he will be out for six months.
On top of the year’s other fluctuations, Kjær did not need this. He has been playing the best club football of his life, anchoring the defence for Stefano Pioli’s rejuvenated side and perhaps bearing out his own analysis. At 32 there has been no sign of a slowdown, quite the opposite, but now it is forced upon him.
We are in touch again the following week, after all, and speak remotely. His attitude is consistent. “In the bigger picture this is just my leg, and it is just football, even though both things are pretty important to a footballer,” he says. “I am well, my family is well, and I will return to the football pitch.
“I prefer to see it as a positive and rare opportunity. I’ve often had the thought about how it would be to take two or three months away from matches, both to be creative about optimising my game and making my body stronger. Normally that’s never possible in a career. I’d rather not have been injured but I have to accept it, work to get over it and get out as a stronger version of myself.”
Kjær has incentives to do that: there is a Scudetto to win and a World Cup in which to lead Denmark, whose armband he has worn since 2016. Back in Helsingør, he drills into the mentality that has brought him this far. He came through the youth system at Midtjylland, where his father, Jørn, was kit man until retiring in February, and had the culture shock of joining Palermo when he was 19. Stops at Wolfsburg, Roma, Lille, Fenerbahce, Sevilla and Atalanta followed: it was a fine, if undulating, club career that became outstanding after he signed for Milan last year.
“In my mind I’m a guy who grew up in a small city and my feet are solidly planted on the ground,” he says. “But sometimes you have to be a little bit arrogant, a little bit ignorant, about your own capabilities because it will push you a little bit more. If you’re playing against Messi or Ronaldo, they are probably better than you. But if you know that every day you work your ass off, you can tell yourself: ‘Who is a better defender in the world than me right now?’ A few, maybe a little bit more, but under the right conditions … I believe I’m the best, I have to believe that. If not I never will be, and I will never give 100%.”
Kjær speaks softly and deliberately, his answers lengthy but clear. It is not difficult to see how he might carry a squad with him. Denmark has a population of 5.8m and, from the outside, its stream of top-level footballers have exuded a palpable toughness in defying limitations of size. It could be simplistic to twin that with their response to such shocking adversity last summer but the question seems worthwhile: what makes a Danish footballer tick?
“Overall we’re very respectful, educated people,” he says. “If you take 100 Danish players from around the world, maybe one will be a little nuts, but I think you’ll find parallels between all of us. You’re brought up to be very independent, learn to take care of yourself, learn to be polite. You learn attitude and confidence is a good thing, but not too much. You appreciate and earn your respect, never taking anything for granted. We’re very direct, we’re very honest, and I think that is very important.”
Those qualities forge the ties that bind. On the pitch they have been augmented by genuine excellence. Kjær and Denmark qualified for Qatar 2022 at a canter; they have secured their place when we meet, but beat the Faroe Islands two days later for a ninth straight victory. Even without Eriksen, their undoubted star, they can be backed for at least a quarter-final place.
In October 2020, Kjær and Eriksen won their 100th caps in a Nations League win at Wembley. Only eight other players had achieved that for Denmark and it is a small, apt snapshot of the journey they have undertaken together. The symmetry when they ended up in Milan, Eriksen playing for Internazionale, delighted both men. Eriksen has since departed and is training with Odense, where he played as a teenager, as he discerns whether a return to professional football will be possible.
The happiest coincidence was short-lived, but it was one episode in something far more profound. “I speak a lot with Christian,” Kjær says. “It’s been my therapy. If I know Christian is OK, then I’m OK; if he’s good, I’m good.”
Outside, the beams over the water are becoming sharper; hundreds of invisible figures are returning to the places they know. “Of course I have things I struggle with, and I will always struggle with them. But with time, and if I can see Christian and his family are good, then I am too. That is where I find my peace in it, and that is enough for me.”