Proud or refreshingly unpretentious? Regardless of which, most people can probably agree on one thing: Sven-Göran Eriksson does not bother about it when football Sweden’s most famous coaching deed is depicted with the peak of his more than 40-year career as the starting point.
As England’s national team captain, “Svennis” from Värmland’s Torsby for just over five years had perhaps the world’s most vulnerable and prestigious coaching assignment. The anecdotes are many and amusing and they are not just for football fans. We get a taste of what it sounded like behind the scenes when David and Victoria Beckham, the Queen, Elton John, Alex Ferguson and José Mourinho had their say.
But we also get to follow the drastic moments, the ones that to a large extent controlled where the continued coaching career would later bark.
Eriksson lived his dream in England – but also got to taste the ruthless tabloid press. The reporting from his private life made him “almost paranoid” and as a listener it is easy to believe that the time has come where he will deal with some of his most talked about episodes.
How is it that “Svennis” seems to have an ability to find himself in slightly absurd contexts which – no matter how annoying they may have been at the moment – are actually difficult not to laugh at almost a couple of decades later?
How does it feel actually to lose his dream job due to something as indigestible as a meeting with a wall-rapping sensational journalist dressed as a sheik at the luxury hotel Burg al Arab in Dubai (a scene taken from the Jönsson League)?
How does he look twelve years later on the decision to refuse to become Sweden’s national team captain to instead prioritize the then fourth division club Notts County – only to later learn that the English club’s “investment” were scams and empty promises?
Sven-Göran Eriksson does not deny that over the years he has fallen victim to blows and wrong decisions, that he has been “childishly naive when it comes to money” and lost many millions, but it does not get more detailed. It is in all its simplicity that the sequences are grazed one by one and form an overall picture of a Swedish football icon whose coaching career is unparalleled – in several respects.
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