Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku says he and his team-mates were in shock after learning of the situation of Denmark's Christian Eriksen ahead of their own Euro 2020 opener against Russia.
Lukaku scored twice as Belgium eased past the Russians with a 3-0 victory to go top of Group B.
But before that game in St Petersburg, Denmark's Group B match with Finland in Copenhagen was suspended for 90 minutes after Lukaku's Inter Milan team-mate Eriksen collapsed at the end of the first half and required lengthy medical treatment on the pitch.
The former Tottenham Hotspur playmaker required compressions to be performed on his chest, but was awake as he left on a stretcher and was reported to be stable in hospital by the Danish Football Association.
Lukaku dedicated his first goal to Eriksen on the pitch - he celebrated by running to the television camera and shouting "Chris, Chris, I love you - and said that the situation had left him in tears before the game.
"I cried a lot because I was scared, obviously. You live strong moments together. I spent more time with him than with my family," he said.
"My thoughts are with him, his girlfriend, his two kids and his family," he added.
"I enjoyed the game but for me, it was difficult to play because my mind was with Christian. I hope he is healthy and I dedicate this performance to him."
Belgium manager Roberto Martinez also spoke of the emotions in his side's dressing room.
"We were watching it live and then it was probably in the next five minutes we were going into our team meeting and you can imagine the last thing we wanted to speak was about football," he said.
"It was a real shock, real sadness and there were tears. We have a lot of team-mates in our dressing room that have shared big moments with Christian.
"Our wishes from the national team and everyone in Belgium is to Christian, his family, and the whole Danish team because that was a really tough moment in St Petersburg so I can only imagine how difficult it was in Copenhagen."
Martinez believes the comfortable victory over Russia in their Group B opener will allow the side ranked number one in the world to grow into Euro 2020.
"The performance is very pleasing. It is never easy to start a tournament of this magnitude and we looked a team very concentrated for 90 minutes," Martinez said.
"We kept a clean sheet in a very good way and the win will allow us to grow into the tournament."
It was not all good for Belgium, with Martinez admitting the outlook for Leicester defender Timothy Castagne was "really bad" after he suffered a double fracture to his eye socket in a nasty clash of heads with Daler Kuzyaev.
Russian boss Stanislav Cherchesov was disappointed at the reaction of his players to Lukaku's 10th-minute opener and also repeatedly avoided responding to questions about the Belgian team being booed when they took the knee before kick-off.
He said: "We started the game as we were planning to. We played in a very compact way and the first goal affected the game and the morale of our team, which I didn't like.
"We had to keep going. We made changes in the second half and played in a more compact way but we couldn't create as many moments as we would have liked."
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