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There are reasons to be watching the European U21 Championships, and not just because you need to fill a football-shaped hole in your life. The play is expressive and for the most part very attack-minded, the Danish fans seem genuinely enthused to be staging the tournament, and there are a couple of very gifted players on display. Mass-media coverage of the game means that you don’t really get talented players sneaking into tournaments like this without a reputation anymore, but even though the ‘discovery’ aspect has been lost, it’s still a pleasure to see younger players in an environment where they’re afforded more prominence.

Javi Martinez looks like a phenomenal player, Juan Mata is everything we expected him to be, and Kyle Walker and Xherdan Shaqiri have shown their potential in flashes – but the standout? Christian Eriksen, Ajax’s creative midfielder.

Fitting the theory, Eriksen has come to the tournament with an already sizeable reputation – Real Madrid, Inter Milan, and Chelsea have already been linked with the Danish starlet, and many will remember his performance against England in February. That scintillating showing in Copenhagen was the moment the bandwagon gathered momentum, and the English press jumped aboard gleefully – but actually, the hype is all real.

There’ll be comparisons with Mesut Ozil – mainly because of the impression that the German made at the same tournament two years ago – but there’s not an awful lot of similarity. Whereas Ozil likes to play from the outside of the pitch inwards, Eriksen wants the ball between centre-circle and penalty box. He’s one of those players that doesn’t seem to have a lot of pace, yet manages to drift past players with ease. But what he does have – an extensive and creative passing range, super set-piece delivery, and a deceptively deep box of tricks – adds up to make him the hottest young property in Europe at the moment. It’s very rare to see a player of that age look so in control of a game, but invariably Eriksen always does.

The rumours persist about a move to a more prominent league, and Ajax’s resistance is likely to be tested by something in the region of a £20m bid. Given what Jordan Henderson has just been bought for, you can imagine that a top-tier club wont think twice about parting with that kind of cash for the young Dane. Hopefully though, he’ll see the sense in at least one more year in the Eredivisie – an attacking midfielder needs to be playing to develop. If he sits on a La Liga or a Premier League bench, he’s going to find himself thrown in sporadically to a standard of football much higher than what he’s used to. You can’t make that step-up like that – very few players can. Hopefully he’ll follow the example set by other Ajax midfield exports like Wesley Sneijder and Rafael Van Der Vaart, who waited until they were 23 and 22 respectively before they left Holland. Both of those players departed the club as more complete players and moved on to tougher leagues almost seamlessly – Van Der Vaart did admittedly have a more circuitous route through the continent, but the point remains the same.

A few more years of exposure to the Champions League and International football and the 19-year-old will be ready to run just about any midfield on the continent. No need to rush it.