The Danish players huddled in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, eyes to eyes, heart to heart. Around them, embracing them and joining them in an outer ring of affection, belonging and hope was the crowd at Copenhagen's Denmark Stadium.
We'd seen this before. Nine days earlier, just a few feet away and on that very field, in fact. That too was a circle of hope; a prayer for life after their teammate Christian Eriksen had collapsed on the pitch and, in the words of the team's medical staff, "left us and then came back.