SVEN
THE FINAL RECKONING
Joe Lovejoy

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

1 ‘Perdente di Successo’

2 Sven’s Verdict

3 The Vacancy

4 The Move

5 The Man and his Methods

6 An Enfield Town Full-Back

7 On Board with Tord

8 Into the Big Time

9 Lisbon Calling

10 All Roads Lead to Rome

11 Back to Benfica

12 Dancing to Mantovani’s Tune

13 Scudetto Lost

14 Emperor of Rome

15 Paradise Lost

16 England’s Boss

17 Munich Magic

18 Beckham’s Match

19 The Luck of the Draw

20 The Halo Slips

21 The Squad

22 Here We Go …

23 ‘Cheer Up, It’s not a Funeral’

24 Revenge

25 Brazil

26 Let’s Go Home

27 The Final Reckoning

28 The FA Verdict

29 Sub Standard

30 Humiliation

31 Turkey and the Last Chance

32 ‘Svenski’

33 ‘One Out, All Out’

34 Heroes and Villains

35 Here We Go Again

36 A Crazy Start

37 Deja Vu

Index

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

‘My advice to Sven is to quit his job, too. Those bastards at the FA want to destroy him. The knives are out.’

FARIA ALAM, after resigning as personal assistant

to the Football Association’s executive

director, David Davies, August 2004

It was all a far cry from the heady days of November 2000, when Sven-Goran Eriksson was warmly greeted as England’s saviour on taking up the management at a time when Kevin Keegan’s abrupt departure had left the national team rock bottom, not just in their World Cup qualifying group, but mentally as well. Now, nearly four years on, the FA wanted him out, and were happy for it to be known that the best paid coach in the world was on borrowed time. If his employers were dissatisfied with Eriksson, the feeling was certainly mutual. He had been ‘hung out to dry’, as he put it, over the ‘Fariagate’ sex scandal that had threatened to bring down the hierarchy of English football’s governing body, and briefly considered sueing for constructive dismissal before opting to soldier on until the next attractive job offer came along.

How had it come to this? It is a story that makes ‘Footballers’ Wives’ look tame, a tale of unbridled lust, greed, intrigue and xenophobia, laced with a lot of football – some good, some bad. When all is said and done, the final verdict has to be that England’s first foreign coach proved to be an expensive disappointment. He deserves credit for reviving the dispirited and disorganized team he inherited from Keegan, but having raised morale, performance and public expectation, he achieved no more than quarter-final places at the 2002 World Cup and 2004 European Championship when, with a more adventurous approach, England might have done much better.

In football terms, history will judge Eriksson to have been too defensively orientated, too inflexible in his team selection and tactics, and too indulgent of his players. In the big matches, England paid the ultimate price for timidly circling the wagons and defending slender leads instead of trying to improve them; they had no Plan B when bog standard 4–4–2 went awry; and, even for those patently out of form, it seemed harder to get out of the team than it was to get in it in the first place. This was most glaringly apparent in the case of David Beckham who, on his own admission, was not as fit as he should have been at Euro 2004, yet was invariably allowed to play the full 90 minutes, or even extra-time, when he should have been substituted.

One of England’s most experienced defenders propounds an interesting theory here. Remarking on a quote from Nancy Dell’Olio, Eriksson’s former partner, who told a TV chat show that he disliked one-on-one conflict, the player suggested this was evident both in the coach’s personal and professional lives. The coach had remained with Ms Dell’Olio for at least a year after the relationship had run its course because breaking up would have been too confrontational, and he was reluctant to substitute senior players for the same reason.

Be that as it may, Eriksson often seemed to be in his captain’s thrall – so much so that when the squad went to Sardinia in May 2004, for pre-tournament preparations, the coach and Nancy moved out of the best suite at the Forte Village, which they had been routinely allocated by the hotel management, to allow Beckham and his wife, Victoria, to move in. This sent out all the wrong signals, fuelling resentment within the squad of the special treatment, and unprecedented influence Beckham enjoyed.

Eriksson has always asked to be judged on results alone, in which case he was clearly overpaid on £4 million a year compared to the £1.1 million earned by Luis Felipe Scolari, who won the 2002 World Cup with Brazil and took Portugal to the final of Euro 2004. Given that disparity, it is unrealistic for the England coach to expect the media to focus entirely on football matters and ignore his private life. The intrusion Eriksson often complains about comes with the pay packet. As the Sunday Times put it, if he wants to be free to romance whoever and behave however he chooses, without it getting into the papers, let him go and manage Austria or Switzerland for £250,000 a year.

Initially, there was no shortage of sympathy when the stormy nature of Eriksson’s relationship with Ms Dell’Olio was made public, but gradually it dawned on people that for a man who craved anonymity he chose some strange partners, and strange venues at which to parade them. Not many women seek publicity as avidly as Ulrika Jonsson, and it surprised nobody but poor old Sven when she made a small fortune out of her kiss-and-tell tittle-tattle about their affair. Similarly, if you want to stay out of the newspapers, the celebrity haunt that is London’s San Lorenzo restaurant is hardly the best place to do your courting.

It was a close run thing at the time, but Eriksson got away with the Ulrika business. It was when others followed that public sympathy swung away from him, towards the much-put-upon Nancy, his live-in partner, who continually declared her love for him, and behaved accordingly, only to be repeatedly reduced to tears and tantrums by his serial unfaithfulness before they finally broke up, towards the end of July 2004.

Eriksson seems to enjoy risky, and risque, behaviour, and thought nothing of entering into a liaison dangereux with Faria Alam, a 38-year-old ex-model of Bangladeshi extraction who was employed on secretarial duties by his friend and most supportive ally at the FA, David Davies. Ms Alam had already had an affair with the FA’s chief executive, Mark Palios, and when the newspapers got wind of what was going on, the inevitable furore became known as ‘Fariagate’.

Eriksson’s stock was already at an all-time low after England’s disappointing performance at Euro 2004, and at first it seemed he was behaving wisely straight after their elimination, when he retreated to his native Sweden and kept his head down. In fact he was seeking solace in the ample charms of his latest conquest, who had joined him at his palatial villa in Sunne, not far from his parent’s home. He had been seeing Ms Alam since January, and telephoned her every day during the championship in Portugal. Now they had another of their clandestine trysts, but this time the secret was out. The News of the World were on to them, and what followed was, according to one senior FA source, ‘… a glaring, startling nightmare that caused everybody to lose faith in the whole organization.’

The crisis was provoked not so much by the affair as by Eriksson’s ambivalent reply when questioned about it by Davies – that and the fact that Palios had also been involved with Ms Alam. Eriksson told Davies in a telephone conversation deemed by the coach to be personal and private that it was all ‘nonsense’. He was therefore both surprised and incensed when this brief chat with a friend led to a formal, public denial by the FA, which subsequently had to be retracted, causing great embarrassment to all concerned. The key word ‘nonsense’ had referred to the fact that Eriksson’s love life was under scrutiny again; it was not a ‘categorical denial’ that the relationship had taken place.

It was when Palios was implicated as another of Ms Alam’s lovers that an awkward situation became a full-blown scandal. The FA’s chief executive had been a man on a mission, the mission being ‘to clean up the game’, and News of the World exposés of his own behaviour would not do at all. Through his head of communications, Colin Gibson, he offered the paper a deal. They would be given full details of Eriksson’s affair, the quid pro quo being that they left Palios’ name out of the story. For a few days Palios and Gibson thought they had pulled it off, but then the News of the World decided that the attempted cover-up was the best story of all, and printed a transcript of their taped telephone conversations with Gibson, during which he said: ‘What I’m proposing is that I give you chapter and verse on her and Sven. And that the pay-off, obviously, is that we leave MP [Palios] out of it. I’ve got the details, I’ve got the places, I’ve got the phone calls. I’ve got everything.’

When news of their machinations came out, Palios and Gibson were both forced to resign, and for a time it seemed that Eriksson would have to follow suit. The chairman of the FA, Geoff Thompson, instigated an investigation into the ‘coach’s conduct, hiring an independent lawyer to interview all those involved and prepare a report to be considered by an emergency meeting of the FA’s twelve-man board. The feeling was that Eriksson could be sacked, without the £10 million or so compensation entailed in paying up his contract, if he was found to have committed ‘gross misconduct’ by misleading his bosses when he told Davies the original News of the World story was ‘nonsense’.

There was a great deal of off-the-record briefing and ‘spinning’ against Eriksson by members of the board, reflected in an article in the Daily Express on 31 July, when Harry Harris wrote: ‘Sven-Goran Eriksson will be sacked next week. The FA board is split 11–1, overwhelmingly in favour of ending his reign as England coach.’ Steve McClaren, of Middlesbrough, was to take over.

Two days later, on returning from holiday in Spain, Davies misjudged his employer’s mood, and gave Eriksson a handsome testimonial which effectively put him, too, on trial. The executive director said: ‘Sven is very popular and respected by the players. He has a consistent track record everywhere he has worked. He is one of the outstanding coaches in the world, that is why many clubs seek his services.’ The board were furious. Unwittingly, Davies had guaranteed his friend a handsome pay-off in the event of his dismissal. One board member, wearing a cloak of anonymity, thundered: ‘Davies had no business making those statements. It was taken as a vote of confidence in Eriksson when Davies is in no position to do it. It is for the board to decide whether Eriksson goes or not. Davies should have been told to keep his mouth shut.’

It was against this bloodthirsty background that the board met on 5 August. By this stage, the FA were so paranoid about leaks and adverse publicity that they booked three suites at different hotels and didn’t tell members where they were going until they were on their way. The real venue was the Leonard Hotel in Marylebone, where there was one absentee, Mike Rawding, from the East Riding FA, who was in hospital.

Blood on the walls? Hardly. After so much hype and hullabaloo, the meeting was the soggiest of damp squibs. The independent lawyer, Peter Norbury, had found no evidence that Eriksson had deliberately misled the FA over his affair with Ms Alam, concluding that the key conversation between Davies and the coach has been a personal one, and was therefore inadmissible. The meeting therefore broke up without a vote being taken on Eriksson’s position, and it was announced that he had ‘no case to answer’. There was criticism of Davies, for failing to phrase his question more precisely, and on a formal basis, and also for his fulsome praise of the subject of the inquiry in advance of its outcome, but a slap on the wrist and a reminder to restrict his comments to his area of jurisdiction was deemed sufficient action.

What did Eriksson make of it all? He laughed dismissively over dinner with his assistant, Tord Grip, but would have been far from amused had he heard what was said before the meeting, when there was broad support for one of his most trenchant critics who declaimed: ‘It’s time we were looking for a new coach as well as a chief executive. We need honourable, straightforward leadership.’

On a strictly non-attributable basis, senior football correspondents were told that Eriksson would be on trial in England’s first two World Cup qualifying games, away to Austria and Poland in September. Failure to win either of these would provide an excuse to sack him for footballing reasons. Ms Alam, who had been privy to the FA’s thought processes from ‘pillow talk’ when Palios was her lover, said they thought Eriksson was ‘more trouble than he was worth’. They believed his ‘sexual shenanigans detracted from his job’. Her advice was to get out before they got him.

Predictably, the England team leapt to the support of their beleaguered coach, but history tells us that players are motivated mostly by self-interest, and always rush to speak up for the man who picks them. They backed Bobby Robson, Terry Venables and, to a lesser extent, Kevin Keegan until they left, when it quickly became a case of: ‘The king is dead, long live the king.’ Claudio Ranieri, at Chelsea, was another good example.

The reserves, who rarely get a game, even when Beckham and company are playing poorly, are nowhere near as supportive, and one former England captain, who played throughout Euro 2004, told me, on the understanding that he was not identified: ‘We could qualify for tournaments with my dad as manager. Sven is paid all that money to win the big games – Brazil, France and Portugal – not the qualifiers, and the fact is we haven’t done that.’

Elsewhere in this book there is glowing testimony to Eriksson’s ability and success at club level. Unfortunately for England, in two major tournaments he has failed to live up to his reputation in the very different world of international management, and he seems unlikely to have another chance. The mystique that served him well in the early stages of his management has been stripped away by the passage of time and, in the places that matter, increasing familiarity was bringing with it something dangerously close to contempt.

CHAPTER ONE ‘PERDENTE DI SUCCESSO’ (THE SUCCESSFUL LOSER)

The epithet the Italian media accorded Sven-Goran Eriksson during the 13 years he plied his trade in their country sprang to mind after England’s second successive elimination from a major tournament at the quarter-final stage. When the Football Association recruited him in November 2000, at unprecedented expense, they expected sustained progress. Getting no further than the last eight of a European Championship won by Greece was definitely not what had been envisaged.

The administrators at Soho Square discussed England’s disappointing performance at Euro 2004 upon their return, and there was criticism of Eriksson’s management. It had not gone unnoticed that while the FA had the best-paid coach in the world, it clearly did not have the best coach. It was the cause of some embarrassment when a league table of remuneration revealed that Luis Felipe Scolari, who had won the World Cup with Brazil before taking Portugal to the European final, earned £1.1m a year to Eriksson’s £4m. Worse still, Otto Rehhagel, who was appointed at roughly the same time as Eriksson, had brought Greece from nowhere to European pre-eminence on just £490,000 per annum.

The FA considered the fact that France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain and Sweden, among others, had all changed their coach, for one reason or another, after the tournament. While privately rueful about getting railroaded into handing their man an extended, enhanced contract before Euro 2004, when he threatened to decamp to Chelsea, they were not, pre-‘Fariagate’, seriously tempted to follow the trend.

The chief executive who had pushed Eriksson’s appointment through, Adam Crozier, had long gone, and his successor, Mark Palios, was nowhere near as enamoured with him, yet the equable Swede survived for a number of reasons, which may be enumerated as follows:

1. Arsenal’s David Dein, the most influential of all the FA mandarins, remained staunch. Dein had effectively blocked moves to replace Kevin Keegan with Arsene Wenger, who initially had been the choice of the head-hunting sub-committee, and had gone to Rome with Crozier to secure Eriksson’s early release from Lazio. He was standing by his man.

2. The respect Eriksson had from the players and his popularity with them impressed his employers. Despite the shortcomings of some of their football, the England team felt they were unlucky to go out to Portugal in the quarter-final in the light of Sol Campbell’s dubiously disallowed goal and the early loss to injury of Wayne Rooney. It was easy for the FA to concur.

3. England’s players were overplayed at club level. The excuse was tediously familiar, but a valid one nevertheless. It was not only David Beckham and Steven Gerrard who looked tired after a demanding season, none of Real Madrid’s ‘galacticos’ did themselves justice at the tournament, and it was surely no coincidence that the winners, Greece, had not been burdened by lengthy Champions’ League commitments.

4. Sacking, and paying up Eriksson, who had a new contract with another four years to run, would be ruinously expensive, and there was no obvious replacement to hand. Wenger had said he intended to stay with Arsenal for another season at least, and although Steve McClaren (Middlesbrough), Alan Curbishley (Charlton) and Sam Allardyce (Bolton) had their advocates, it was generally believed that there was no English candidate ready for the job. Fanciful suggestions that Scolari or Rehhagel might be engaged were no more than that. Not only were they committed to Portugal and Greece respectively, neither spoke any English.

From Eriksson’s point of view, although he has made no secret of his preference for the day-today involvement of club football, the jobs he coveted most, at Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, were no longer available. In the circumstances, coach and employers were both content to soldier on. That said, there was an acknowledgement that England had under-achieved in Portugal. They had travelled with high hopes, only for the country’s best crop of good young players for a generation to return with tails lodged firmly between their legs, using a side door to avoid supporters who had turned out to meet them at Luton airport.

Gary Lineker, no Eriksson fan, was not alone in laying the blame squarely at the well-heeled size nines of the coach and David Beckham. The former England captain said: ‘England looked jaded. We couldn’t keep the ball and defended too deep, but the most disturbing thing was how we proved that we have no Plan B. Plan A was to allow Wayne Rooney to play opponents virtually on his own, filling up all the space between the forwards and midfield, as well as scoring most of the goals. When Rooney went off, we didn’t know what to do. We lost all shape and there was no link man to the forwards. The whole back four just stood practically on David James’ toes, where any sort of contact on the ball from the attacker is likely to end in a goal.

‘England made that mistake throughout the tournament, and I kept waiting for them to get it right. It’s just basic stuff, and you have to raise a question mark against the coach when such things are continually allowed to happen. England also suffered from having David Beckham clearly not fit. He had a very poor tournament, and that was down to a lack of conditioning. To put it bluntly, he was off the pace, and a shadow of the player I saw in his first six months at Real Madrid.’

The FA’s response came from their executive director, David Davies, who said: ‘We are lucky to have Sven – and we’re proud of “Becks”. People very quickly forget, in the disappointment of going out of a tournament, that Sven is a manager many teams around the world covet. He is licking his wounds at the moment, but he has told us he is already looking forward to the next World Cup. Everybody knows David Beckham has had a difficult time recently, but he is immensely proud to be captain of England, and we are immensely proud to have him.’

The party line was unconvincing. It was true that Eriksson had been coveted, and clandestinely sounded out, by Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Internazionale in the 18 months leading up to Euro 2004, but no one was chasing him after the tournament. Beckham meanwhile had given England no reason for pride – on the contrary, his condition in Portugal was little short of a disgrace. It was one thing for the captain to be hampered by injury at the World Cup, quite another for a lack of fitness, due to laxity in training, to render him a passenger in the closing stages of big matches at the European Championship. His excuse, that conditioning work at Real Madrid was not as rigorous as it had been at Manchester United, was a poor one, instantly refuted by Carlos Queiroz, Real’s coach for 2003/04, who said: ‘During the last three weeks of the season, Luis Figo was at every training session, giving 100 per cent, but David missed some for various reasons, or sometimes for no reason at all. Figo didn’t go skiing in April when the team were still playing in the Champions’ League. That’s where the difference lay. In the final analysis, one player keeps performing to the end and the other doesn’t.’

Beckham’s exhaustion was plain for all to see in the latter stages of the quarter-final against Portugal, and it was the captain who should have been substituted, not Steven Gerrard. Twice signals went out from the bench, suggesting Beckham came off, but on both occasions he waved his hands dismissively, clearly gesturing his unwillingness. Eriksson’s failure to insist on his removal from the action was rooted partly in loyalty to a player who had become a trusted lieutenant, but also in a character flaw. As his partner, Nancy Dell’Olio, said a few weeks after the tournament, in another context: ‘Sven tries to avoid confrontation.’ It was an observation that explained a lot – those ridiculous wholesale changes in friendly internationals at the behest of the club managers for one thing, the continued presence in the squad of Emile Heskey for another. The really successful managers have no such qualms about difficult decisions that are likely to cause conflict.

Support for Eriksson, albeit qualified, came from one of his predecessors, Sir Bobby Robson, who thought he had been ‘too negative’ at times, but said: ‘When I took England to the 1990 World Cup, I was a far better coach and manager than I had been at Mexico ’86 or the ’88 European Championship, and it will be the same for Sven. There is nothing like having two major tournaments under your belt to help you deal with different situations when they arise. My view is that a couple of the changes Sven made against Portugal were a bit negative, but I support his right to have the chance to show what he has learned in 2006.

‘In one sense, he was very unlucky against Portugal. Had Sol Campbell’s legitimate goal stood, we would have been in the semi-finals. Having said that, Portugal were the better side on the night, and if Sven has learned anything, it is probably to be a bit more positive, particularly with substitutions. The decision to send on Phil Neville in central midfield was a negative move, and handed the initiative to Portugal. He is essentially a full-back, and doesn’t have the energy to get up and down in international football.

‘The tournament proved that it is becoming harder to sit back and defend a 1–0 lead. It is not just England who were caught out, Italy defended very deep against Sweden and conceded an equalizer late on, as did Germany against Holland. The game has changed in the last ten years, and every country seems to have a supply of quick, talented attacking players. These days, the best way to keep a lead is to try to score the second goal, rather than lock the back door as we tried to do against France and Portugal.

‘I was so disappointed when we came back from Euro ’88 having lost all three matches, but two years later we reached the World Cup semi-finals, with a lot of the same players hitting top form whereas in ’88 they couldn’t get going. The message is that to rip up and start again now would be self-defeating. The best solution is to give Sven and his men another chance to show that, with a little more devil may care and confidence in their own technical ability, England can compete with the best.’

The players’ view was articulated by Gary Neville, England’s longest-serving international, who had a good tournament, on and off the field. Whenever the team needed real leadership, such as after the defeat by France, it was usually Neville who provided it, with the uplifting dressing-room oratory that was so conspicuously lacking in others. ‘Gutted’ by the outcome in Portugal, the Manchester United defender said: ‘We were totally sincere when we told everybody we could win it, and I do believe that we were only just the wrong side of a thin dividing line. But at the end of the day, we weren’t quite good enough. Just for once, it would be nice to get those close calls that can decide a big game, like the goal Sol had disallowed, but the fact is that we didn’t have that extra edge to get us through.

‘There will be a big debate now about whether we are good enough, whether we were fooling ourselves when we said we could win the competition. Portugal did keep the ball well, and put us under amazing pressure, but I don’t think we should beat ourselves up about our passing after every tournament. I watched Portugal dominate Spain in just the same way.

‘This team has passed the ball as decisively and confidently as any of the England teams I have been involved in. We always seem to have to find a scapegoat when we go out of any tournament, but nobody deserves to be nailed. We just need to keep taking more of the strides forward that we have already made under Sven, who is the best England manager I have known.’

CHAPTER TWO SVEN’S VERDICT

Sven-Goran Eriksson rejected criticisms of his ‘negativity’, but as significant as Rio Ferdinand’s suspension from Euro 2004, or the injury sustained by Wayne Rooney in the quarter-finals, was the absence of Eriksson’s assistant, Brian Kidd, who was recovering from prostate cancer. Kidd was a positive influence, an attack-minded coach, whose reaction to adversity was to throw another man forward. Terry Venables said of their time together at Leeds: ‘Whenever we were in trouble in a game, Brian would always say: “Let’s go 4–3–3.”’ When Kidd was not fit enough to travel to Portugal, he was replaced by Steve McClaren, who is much more defence-orientated. His inclination was to concentrate on organizing the back four, where he had mixed success. Three of England’s defenders – Gary Neville, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell – shone throughout, but as a unit the defence operated much too deep, and proved alarmingly fallible at set pieces. That Kidd was missed is beyond question.

Eriksson felt England had been unlucky, and said the difference between success and failure was infinitesimal. A debriefing went as follows:

Question: What more do England need to win a major tournament?

Eriksson: Very little really. A little bit of luck would be nice. I still think we can win the next World Cup.

Q: Will you be around to try in 2006?

Eriksson: If it is the wish of the English people, or the FA, I will leave, but I don’t think that is the case. When I called the players together for a meeting the day after we lost to Portugal, I talked about 2006, and said I was committed to taking them to Germany.

Q: Were mistakes made in selection?

Eriksson: Absolutely not. The 11 players I picked were the best available, and the team will not change much before 2006.

Q: Are new players needed to take the team forward?

Eriksson: No, definitely not. This generation is still young, and can play at the 2006 World Cup for sure, and most of them in 2008. How old is David Beckham? Twenty-nine. At 31 he should be even better. Steven Gerrard is still only 24. It’s too early to talk about a new generation. Some new players will come in, but not many. Jermain Defoe will get a chance. He’s quick and a goalscorer. And we’ll have a look at Chris Kirkland in goal – if he stays fit for once.

Q: Before the tournament, England’s midfield was regarded as a strong suit. What went wrong?

Eriksson: I don’t agree that it did go wrong. All of them could have played a bit better, but their discipline was good, and they will be in the squad – the team probably – for years to come. In the quarter-final their legs went because we were chasing the ball so much. Steven Gerrard had cramp, and couldn’t do the running any more, so we had to put another player on.

Q: Beckham had looked more tired than Gerrard. Was his condition a disappointment?

Eriksson: When we went to Sardinia to prepare, we found that four or five players needed to work on their fitness. He was one of them. He worked hard at it, but maybe it was a bit too late. We have seen Beckham better, there’s no doubt about that.

Q: Why did you not bring him off?

Eriksson: If I could have changed one more player in the quarter-final it would have been Beckham, but they were all tired, and I’d made my three substitutions. Remember, Portugal had two more days to recover between games, and at some stage we were always going to pay for that.

Q: Why did England sit back and invite pressure?

Eriksson: Why didn’t we attack? It was the same as the Brazil game in Shizuoka. I wanted us to attack, but to do it you have to have the ball. If you don’t have it, you have to defend, it’s as simple as that. I like to defend high up the pitch, not on our 18–yard line, but if you come up against a team who are gambling a bit, you have to defend deeper. Also, if you are tired, as we were, you make more mistakes and keep the ball less, and it becomes very difficult. Playing defensively was not a tactic, not something we set out to do.

Q: So it was not all down to bad luck, England needed to retain possession more?

Eriksson: We work on that every time we have a practice session. We concentrate on ball retention in the warm-up, and also as part of the main session. I think we are improving at it, but Portugal, technically, are the best team in Europe, just like two years ago, when Brazil were technically the best team in the world when we played them. When I use the word technically, I mean they are best at keeping the ball.

Q: Why was there such a gap between the midfield and the strikers?

Eriksson: There’s a dilemma there. You want to play the ball forward as early as possible, but to keep the team together as a unit you need to play three, four or five passes and then get it forward. That gives time for the defenders and midfield to move up. If you just kick the ball long, then the strikers make their runs and the rest of the team is not there with them, and when they lose possession, there is that gap there. That happened too often, and it’s something we’ll have to work on.

Q: You seemed to be more emotionally affected than you had been at the World Cup.

Eriksson: When we went to the World Cup, we weren’t sure that we could win it, but during the tournament we started to believe that it was possible. At Euro 2004 I was always convinced that we were one of the teams capable of winning it. We didn’t and I’m sorry. I’ve lost many football games in my career, but to go out like that, on penalties, was awful. The difference between winning and losing was like this (he held up a thumb and forefinger, half an inch apart). We are so nearly there.

Q: What are the positives to be taken from the tournament?

Eriksson: Sol Campbell was a rock. Incredible. He could have been the match winner against Portugal – should have been. Ashley Cole also had an extremely good tournament. And then there was Wayne Rooney. We knew about him in England beforehand, but he proved to be even better than we thought, and he is a big name now, not just in Europe, but around the world. I think he will be a star of the World Cup in 2006, the European Championship in 2008, and way beyond that. If you are that good at 18, then by the time you’re 22 or 24 you could be phenomenal. Wayne is already one of our jewels, and he will get better and better. It is not just about his goals, it’s about how he plays football and the thought behind it. He’s always a thought process ahead in the positions he takes up, and the way he links up our game is just fantastic from one so young. With him in the side, it’s so much easier for us to play out with the ball. You can target him and he’ll keep it or get fouled, in which case he has got us a free-kick. I’d expected him to play well, but not at that level.

Q: What would be your abiding memory of Euro 2004?

Eriksson: The last three minutes against France I guess (when England went from winning 1–0 to losing 2–1). That or the last penalty against Portugal. No, definitely the last three minutes against France. That was awful – complete madness.

True enough – it was ‘madness’ reminiscent of the circumstances in which he got the job in the first place …

CHAPTER THREE THE VACANCY

In hindsight it is clear that Kevin Keegan should have gone straight after Euro 2000, when the ‘Three Lions’ returned from the Low Countries with their tails lodged firmly between their legs. Tactical naïvety has become a clichéd criticism, trotted out ad nauseam on every radio phone-in, but Keegan was its personification. Against Portugal in Eindhoven, with England leading 2–0, he opted not to shut up shop and man-mark Luis Figo, arguably the best player in the world, with the result that England let slip what should have been a winning position and lost 3–2. Their hopes were resurrected with a 1–0 victory over the worst German team in living memory, but then a deserved 3–2 defeat against Romania, in Charleroi, where some of his choices were exposed as inadequate at international level, brought Keegan and company home before the competition proper had started.

After Glenn Hoddle had psycho-babbled himself out of the job, Keegan was portrayed as ‘the people’s choice’ by the Football Association. He wasn’t. That the label stuck was something of a triumph for the spin doctors at the FA, for in the opinion polls it was not Keegan but Terry Venables who had emerged as the clear favourite, both with the fans and with the professionals in the game. In the aftermath of Euro 2000, it was apparent that ‘King Kevin’ had feet of clay. The players liked him, but despaired at his lack of tactical nous, the public could see through his crass, British bulldog tub-thumping, and his employers were beginning to have their doubts.

The change should, and probably would, have been made before the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign, but for the absence of a suitable candidate who was available and, crucially, on whom the FA mandarins could agree. Venables, who had proved his worth in taking England to the semi-finals of Euro 96, would have had a second crack at the job but for the intransigence of Noel White, the influential chairman of the FA’s international committee. So Keegan was allowed to continue – a decision the FA was to rue.

By one of the quirks of fate that abound in football, the first game in World Cup qualifying saw England at home to Germany, the old enemy providing the opposition for the last international to be played under Wembley’s twin towers. The game would be followed by a second qualifier, away to Finland, four days later. Traditionally, the Germans were something of a bête noire, but there were no Beckenbauers, Netzers or Mullers in their millennium class, and England, who had just beaten them 1–0 in Euro 2000, should have had nothing to fear.

But that was reckoning without Keegan’s selectorial waywardness. For some unfathomable reason, he played Gareth Southgate, a central defender, in midfield, where this most willing and diligent of professionals was a four-square peg in a circular hole. England were depressingly poor, but Germany were not much better, and the only goal of a low-quality game was more the product of defensive deficiency than Teutonic inspiration. There should have been no more than token danger when Liverpool’s Dietmar Hamann stepped up to take a free-kick fully 30 yards out, but England neglected to form the customary defensive wall, with the result that Hamann was able to beat David Seaman’s slow-mo dive, low to his right.

England were booed off the pitch and Keegan was verbally abused by his erstwhile admirers as he made the long, disconsolate trudge around the perimeter, during which the extent of his inadequacy finally hit home. By the time he reached the sanctuary of the dressing room, he had made a fateful decision. It was time to quit. Disarmingly honest, he told the players and his employers, and then the nation, via television, that he was not good enough for the job. Somebody else should have a go.

In the dressing room, there was emotion and confusion in equal measure. Some of the senior players, such as Tony Adams and Graeme Le Saux, urged the manager to ‘sleep on it’ before finally making up his mind, but he was adamant. Adam Crozier, the FA’s Chief Executive at the time, and did most to try to persuade Keegan to reconsider. Recalling one of his worst days in the job, he told me: ‘Losing to Germany was an incredibly disappointing way to start the World Cup qualifying series. It set us right back on our heels. To lose your first game at home to your main rivals would be a major setback for anybody, but it was the way we lost it. The way we played that afternoon, we seemed to have gone backwards again.

‘From my conversations with him, I know Kevin could see that there were good young players coming through, who were going to improve the team over the next couple of years, and he wasn’t sure that he was the right man to get the best out of them. Kevin is a great patriot, and he had always had a great rapport with the fans. Not everybody will agree with this, but I felt it was a very brave thing for him to say: “I don’t think I’m up to the job.” The thing I didn’t agree with him over, and I told him so, was his timing. My view was that if that was the way he felt, the time to go was after the game against Finland, four days later. Quitting after Germany left us completely rudderless for the trip to Helsinki. Another false start in the second game, which was what we had, was always going to make the task of qualifying even more difficult for whoever took over permanently. So I felt Kevin should have stayed on for that one, and I certainly tried very hard to persuade him, as did a number of the players and Noel White, Chairman of the International Committee.

‘In the dressing room straight after the game we all tried – Tony Adams particularly – to get him to reconsider. Don’t forget, he was very popular with the players, and even after that game there was still a lot of love for Kevin and a great deal of support. They wanted him to stay, but there was no persuading him. Anybody who knows Kevin will tell you that one of his characteristics is that once he has made up his mind about something, that’s it. He won’t budge.

‘Crucial to his decision, I think, was the reaction of the fans as he came away from the pitch. He had always had that fantastic relationship with them; now they were booing and insulting him. In the dressing room, his mindset was complete. He wasn’t emotional, not at all. People imagine that he was, but he wasn’t. He came to a very clear-headed decision, and I think he made it with the best of intentions. He felt it was the right thing for his country. Even for the game on the Wednesday, his point of view was that the team would do better under someone else. He said to me: “I don’t think I can lift them [the players] because I don’t feel up there myself.”’

For Crozier and White, the urgent task that chaotic Saturday night was to find a stand-in to take the squad to Helsinki, less than 48 hours later. Crozier explained: ‘It wasn’t just that we’d lost, or that it was the last game at Wembley, but the England coach had resigned, so there was a huge furore about what had happened and where we went from here. In terms of the Wednesday match, there was only one sensible solution, and that was to get our technical director, Howard Wilkinson, to do it. Given the timescale [the England squad flew out to Helsinki on the Monday morning], it had to be somebody from within, and Howard had the knowledge, both of our players and of international football. So on the Saturday night, by about 7.30pm, we’d agreed that he would be in charge for Finland. I spoke to Noel White about it, and checked with the FA chairman [Geoff Thompson] to make sure that he was comfortable with it. But in the final analysis, our options were so limited that it had to be Howard. To have put someone in from scratch would have been asking the impossible.’

One of the more fanciful tabloid newspapers reported that Crozier had left the dressing room and telephoned Eriksson’s agent, Athole Still, to enquire about his availability. (An interesting, cosmopolitan character, who trained as an opera singer in Italy and worked as a swimming coach, TV commentator and journalist, Still got to know Eriksson in the mid-1980s when they met during abortive negotiations to take Still’s first football client, John Barnes, from Watford to Roma, who were then coached by Eriksson. A friendship was forged over the next few years and, when Eriksson’s first agent, the Swede Borg Lanz, died in 1993, Still replaced him.) ‘That was rubbish,’ Crozier said, laughing. What did happen was that before England left for Finland, Crozier formed a sub-committee whose brief was to draw up a list of candidates. As is his wont, he wanted to be seen to be proactive. The new manager would be his man.

The assumption was always that Wilkinson was a non-runner. As a manager of the old school, at Leeds, he had been good enough to win the last First Division title before the advent of the Premier League, and in those days he had confided that his driving ambition was to manage England. He had done it once before in a caretaker’s capacity, after Hoddle’s abrupt departure, but a comprehensive 2–0 defeat by France at Wembley did nothing for his credentials, and England’s goalless bore with Finland on 11 October 2000 merely confirmed the impression that the game had moved on and passed him by. The occasion was more remarkable for what happened before, and afterwards, than for anything that happened in the 90 minutes. The final training session before the match was witnessed by a group of English football correspondents and by two members of the FA’s international committee, all of whom were distinctly unimpressed. The journalists noticed that England’s game plan seemed to revolve around hitting long balls, right to left, for Emile Heskey to knock down. The FA kingmakers noted that Wilkinson’s man-management methods left as much to be desired as his tactics. Watching him bark out orders via a microphone headset, one said to the other: ‘We’ve no chance of winning here, he’s lecturing international footballers like schoolboys.’ As if to reinforce the point, two of the senior professionals present, Stuart Pearce and Teddy Sheringham, exchanged horrified looks behind Wilkinson’s back.

The poverty of England’s performance in the Olympic stadium, and a table which showed them bottom, with one point and Germany top with six, moved one reporter to enquire whether it might be better to forget about qualifying for Japan and Korea, and use the remaining matches to bring on younger players with Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup in mind. Instead of the expected ‘each game is there to be won’ response, Wilkinson replied: ‘The possibility you’ve raised obviously has to be considered. In the interests of the long term, we could go into it [the rest of the qualifying series] picking a team that’s going to be there in four years’ time.’

But would the public stand for the jam tomorrow approach? ‘If it’s the right thing to do in the opinion of the professionals, they’ve got to. What’s the alternative? To keep doing what we’re doing at the moment, riding the rollercoaster? Quite frankly, I’m fed up with that. I don’t even enjoy the highs particularly, because every time we’re up there I think: “Here we go again, hold on to the bar because we’ll be going down any moment.” No, the real alternative is to go in with realistic expectations and to outline clearly to the players what is expected of them. We’ve got to make sure that their expectations are realistic, and that they don’t fall into the trap of trying to achieve what you lot [the media] set out in your agenda.’

Any slender chance Wilkinson might have had of getting the job on a permanent basis disappeared in this puff of pomposity. Abandon the World Cup, and a lucrative ride on the gravy train? This was heresy at the FA. Crozier says: ‘I’m not sure Howard wanted it, and the general feeling among the sub-committee was that he was never going to get it.’ There is conflicting testimony as to what happened next. Crozier would have it that he was immediately intent upon crossing the Channel, and the Rubicon, by appointing from abroad. Always the mover and shaker, he made all the running. ‘In the period between the games against Germany and Finland, I compiled what I thought was the right short list. Then I got the sub-committee together, and spoke to them about why I’d done what I had, and said: “These are the people who should be in the frame. For a job of such magnitude, I thought there were only five who could rise to the challenge.”’

Apart from Crozier, the head-hunting subcommittee comprised: Geoff Thompson (the FA chairman), Noel White (chairman of the international committee), David Richards (vice-chairman of the international committee and chairman of the Premier League), David Dein of Arsenal and Peter Ridsdale of Leeds United (both of whom represented the Premier League on the FA board) and Wilkinson (FA technical director). It was to these men, Crozier says, that he took his five potential candidates. He told me: ‘We talked a lot about the criteria for the job, and the most important one for me, right at the very top of the list, was a sustained record of success. At the time I said success internationally, which was misunderstood. I didn’t mean a record of success in international football, but success wherever the person had coached, across the world. Our man had to be successful, not just as a one-season wonder, but somebody who had really achieved, wherever he had been. We wanted it all – international credibility, tactical nous, man-management expertise and the ability to handle the media. We were looking for respect within the game and the right personality and cultural profile for international football, where the highs are incredibly high, the lows really low, and there’s a lot of time between games to fret over a bad result or get over-excited by a good one. We needed somebody who could cope with both extremes in a very levelheaded way. An emotional person over-reacts, and it becomes a rollercoaster existence. A calm personality is essential for international management.

‘I started with a long list, then broke it down and said to the committee: “There is a maximum of five who could meet our criteria and do the job.” At first I had people on the list who seemed to be good candidates, but then we thought: “Hang on, have they genuinely got all this?” The truth was that not many had.’ While others scratched their heads and dithered, Crozier drove the process forward. ‘I said: “Right, this is the short list. Before we go any further, does anyone disagree? No? Right, leave it with me, I will go away and look at this lot and find out everything I need to know about them.”’

Ridsdale remembers the sequence of events rather differently. According to him, he proposed Bobby Robson, who became the sub-committee’s first choice, ahead of Eriksson. The former Leeds chairman told me: ‘After the Germany game, on the Monday, Adam asked me, and the others, if we would form the sub-committee. We flew out to Finland and all the members of the sub-committee were there, apart from David Dein, and we thought it was a good opportunity to have our first meeting. We got together in the team’s hotel, and Adam produced a flip chart with a clean sheet of paper – nobody’s name was on it. He divided the board into four sections: English managers, non-English managers working in England, foreign managers and I think the fourth category was up and coming. On the English side, we had Bobby Robson, Terry Venables, Roy Hodgson and Howard Wilkinson, with a question mark against him. Of those working in England but non-English, we had Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Gerard Houllier, the foreigners were Eriksson, Johann Cruyff, Marcello Lippi and Hector Cuper, and in the up-and-coming category were Martin O’Neill, David O’Leary, Peter Taylor and Bryan Robson. These names were solicited by Adam and written on the board by him. He said: “These are the categories, do we agree? Can anyone think of anybody else? No? Right.” So we went through the names, and everybody agreed that the ideal was an Englishman with another young Englishman backing him up. We had Bobby Robson and Peter Taylor as manager and heir apparent. There was a long debate about whether Terry [Venables] should be considered, and everybody agreed that if “New England” was to represent what the FA wanted it to stand for, we couldn’t discount Terry’s non-footballing reputation, whatever its rights and wrongs. The view was that, given what we were trying to achieve at the FA, we had to have a new beginning, and therefore Terry was not appropriate. That was unanimous. Whether it was fair to him or not, the baggage that came with him counted against him, and he was out of it.

‘Having debated all the rights and wrongs, we came out of it with two names: Bobby Robson and Sven. The agreement was that Adam would go away and seek permission from Newcastle to talk to Robson, to see if he was an option. We weren’t just talking about having him for one or two games, as was widely reported at the time, we wanted him on a permanent basis. There was, though, a suggestion that if Bobby would only agree to do it for the rest of the season, that would buy us time.’

Ridsdale, now Chairman at Barnsley, adds that Crozier was told: ‘If you go to Newcastle and get permission to speak to him, and Bobby says: “I’m not interested, but I’m prepared to help you out as a stopgap,” that would be better than nothing. Adam was sent away from the meeting with two alternatives to explore: Bobby Robson with a young English coach, or if not, Sven. After that first meeting, Bobby was in front of Sven. Everybody’s perception was: “Ideally, we appoint an Englishman. If not, we’ll go overseas.” Bobby only ceased to be the front runner when Newcastle were approached and said they wouldn’t release him.’

Crozier denies much of this and, in fairness, it is his version of events that ties in with that of Noel White. During the course of his research, Crozier said, he relied heavily on the advice of Sir Alex Ferguson, who had ruled himself out of the running for the job, but was willing to assist the FA in their quest.

‘I spent a lot of time with Alex, who was tremendously helpful. The night Manchester United played PSV Eindhoven in the Champions’ League (18 October 2000, seven days after the Finland game) he gave me a couple of hours at Old Trafford. When I went to see him I actually had a dual purpose, although nobody knew it at the time. I went to pick Alex’s brain about getting the right manager, but also to get his agreement to let us have Steve McClaren, his assistant, as part of our new coaching team. I wanted continuity, a long-term strategy, and I’d got the sub-committee to agree that we’d have three or four coaches under the manager, none of whom would be “The Chosen One”, as Bryan Robson was under Terry Venables, but any one of whom might emerge as the heir apparent over a period of time. For me, you see, there were two searches going on at the same time. Everyone thought I was looking for an England manager, but I was looking for a manager and his back-up. As it turned out, I ended up getting the support team first: Steve from United and Peter Taylor from Leicester, plus Sammy Lee, from Liverpool, for the Under-21s.’

When it came to the top job, Ferguson helped to point Crozier in Eriksson’s direction. ‘Having found out as much as I could about potential targets, and having listened to what expert witnesses like Alex had to say, I became absolutely convinced that Sven was our man after that first week. Alex was very helpful. We also talked about his players’ feelings about the England set-up. When they went back to Manchester United after international duty with us, what were they saying about us? From what they had told him, and from what he had seen, what did Alex think about our way of doing things? Where were we going wrong? That helped us to identify the sort of person we needed to fix it.’

Where Crozier and Ridsdale agree is that after the first week, Eriksson topped the wanted list. Crozier says the peripatetic Hodgson (ex-Malmo, Switzerland, Grasshoppers, Internazionale, Blackburn, Udinese etc) fell at the first hurdle, failing the ‘sustained success’ test, and Ferguson and Houllier were discounted on grounds of unavailability. So, too, was Wenger. Arsenal were naturally keen to keep the manager who led them to the Double in 1998, and the presence of Dein, their vice-chairman, on the sub-committee inevitably led to suggestions of a conflict of interests. The smooth poise for which Dein is renowned was disturbed momentarily when Wenger went on Sky TV and said he could not understand why England had not asked about him.

Before cottoning on to Eriksson, the media had made the Arsenal man the favourite for the job. So was he considered or not? Dein havered, saying: ‘He [Wenger] had gone public many, many times with the fact that he was going to respect his contract with Arsenal, and this was all about the art of the possible. Who could we get? There was no point wasting our energies on somebody we couldn’t get.’

When the sub-committee met for the second and last time, Eriksson was ‘a clear front runner’, Crozier says. The fans’ favourite, Venables, had disappeared off the radar. ‘If you measure his record against all our criteria, he didn’t stack up as well as Sven. It’s a subjective thing, and I’m sure there are people who still disagree, but if you are a leader, you have to back your judgement. The only time I got upset during the whole process was when some journalist friends of Terry’s wrote that we’d chosen integrity as one of our criteria specifically to rule him out, as if he didn’t have any. I found that upsetting for him because: (a) I wouldn’t want a friend to write that about me, and (b) it wasn’t true, so it was very unfair. We were looking for a broad spectrum of qualities, and my hunch was that Sven had them all – or at least more so than anybody else we were considering.’

Eriksson had been Crozier’s choice from day one. ‘That wasn’t the case with everyone on the sub-committee,’ he acknowledged. ‘Peter [Ridsdale] was always for Bobby, and initially other people had other views. At our first meeting some said we should go for Alex Ferguson, others Arsene Wenger, and there was a lot of discussion about Johann Cruyff. But at that second meeting, it became unanimous for Sven. I have to say I did corral everyone in, admittedly with David Dein’s assistance. It was a case of: “OK, is everyone now 100 per cent up for this?” They were.’

Ridsdale begs to differ again. ‘For Adam to say he forced the issue is wrong. We followed a very methodical process. And if David feels he initiated it, that is disingenuous, because he wasn’t at the first meeting. With the benefit of hindsight, Adam might say: “I always had this solution in mind, I led them there,” but I don’t think that’s true because we started with a blank sheet of paper, worked through all the possibilities, and everybody had their particular suggestions written down.

‘I don’t remember who first mentioned Eriksson – it might have been Adam, to be fair. I said Bobby Robson. I was saying that whatever we did, we should have the next man in place, so we wouldn’t have to go through the whole process again from scratch. The young bucks, maybe two or three coaches, should work alongside the main man, so that a ready-made successor could come from Peter Taylor, Steve McClaren or Bryan Robson, whose names all came up.’

Had Dein blocked any move in Wenger’s direction? Ridsdale was adamant that he did not. ‘People said because I was on the sub-committee, David [O’Leary] couldn’t be picked, which was a joke. He was on the list, but what had he done? He was never seriously considered for that reason. The same people said Wenger couldn’t get the job because of David [Dein], but it was at that first meeting that Sven emerged as our preferred foreign candidate, and David wasn’t even there. Wenger was considered, as was Alex Ferguson, but Sven was the number one non-English choice.’

Dein, away on Arsenal business, could have been contacted by mobile phone, but was not consulted either before or during that first meeting. Had he had any input? ‘No,’ Ridsdale said, emphatically. ‘Well, I know he didn’t speak to me, or to Dave Richards, Noel White or Howard Wilkinson. To Crozier … who knows? But Crozier never said: “I’ve spoken to Dein and we wouldn’t get Arsene Wenger.”’

For the second meeting, it was Ridsdale’s turn to be absent, on club business. Everybody else was present, Dein included. Ridsdale says: ‘All I know about what happened was from a briefing I had straight afterwards by phone, and that was to say that the second meeting had confirmed the conclusions of the first, and that thereafter Adam had the authority to go and try to get Sven.’

CHAPTER FOUR THE MOVE

Having agreed on the man they wanted, the Football Association’s problem was that Eriksson was under contract to Lazio, the Italian champions, who were still in the Champions’ League and intent on winning the European Cup. Naturally they wanted to keep the coach who had brought them the coveted scudetto. Adam Crozier, however, was not about to be deterred, and within two days of his first approach to the Roman club he had his man. He recalled: ‘My attitude was: “If you’re going to go for someone, do it properly. Make your move quickly, equipped with everything you need to get the business done. Get it done there and then, on the spot.” So I prepared everything I’d need to have with me when I got to speak to Sven about the job. I had analysis of matches, profiles of the players – not just the senior squad but the Under-21s and those coming through the youth scheme, right down to the Under-15s. I had videos of all the key games, statistics, everything. That enabled me to say to him: “Look, this is where we are, this is where we’re going, this is what we want to try to do.”

‘The other key thing when I made the move was to be able to offer our man a long-term contract. I’d got the people here [the FA] to agree to five years. If our objective was to win a major tournament by 2006, the contract should last until then. We needed stability, and five years provided the opportunity to train up people with the potential to take over.’

Crozier and David Dein, who has emerged in recent years as the most dynamic member of the FA board, flew to Rome by private jet on Sunday 29 October 2000, and prepared overnight for their meeting with Lazio and their coach the following day. Crozier said: ‘We met Sergio Cragnotti [the Lazio president], his son, Massimo, Dino Zoff [Lazio vice-president and former coach] and one or two others at the club’s training ground, at Formello. Sven was present for some of the time. Cragnotti senior was an absolute gentleman. Top class. We explained why we wanted to speak to Sven, and Mr Cragnotti said he was caught in two minds. Lazio had just enjoyed their most successful season ever, and were on a high, but he and Sven had become very close. A bond had been built up between them over a momentous season, and he didn’t want to stand between his friend and what he wanted. From our point of view, that was a great attitude – one not many would have taken.

‘At this stage Mr Cragnotti asked Sven to join us, and said: “Do you want to talk to them?” Sven said: “Yes, I would very much like to. This is the sort of job I’ve dreamed about, it’s something I’ve always wanted to try.” The second stage was for us to talk to him, and we did that there and then. Everything was agreed between us within 24 hours.’ Money was never a problem, Crozier insisted, and nor should it have been, with £2.5m a year, plus bonuses, on the table. In comparison, just four years earlier Terry Venables was on £125,000 a year when he took England to the semi-finals at Euro 96, and Kevin Keegan had been getting £800,000 annually. At Lazio, Eriksson earned £1.75m a year, tax free. ‘The third stage,’ Crozier said, ‘was agreeing with Mr Cragnotti the timing of the changeover. Initially, Lazio were unhappy about Sven leaving them before the end of the season because they were still in the Champions’ League, but eventually we managed to persuade them to meet us halfway. Sven would join us part-time from February, in time for our game against Spain at Villa Park. Sven wanted to finish on a high with Lazio, to repay Mr Cragnotti. He didn’t want to leave them in the lurch. There was that closeness between the two of them.’

Reluctantly, Crozier and Dein accepted that there was going to be an interregnum. Fortunately, they thought, they had just the right man to plug the gap. ‘We had a friendly coming up against Italy,’ Crozier explained, ‘and our initial objective was to get Bobby Robson as caretaker for that one game, with Steve McClaren and Peter Taylor backing him up. We were a bit surprised when Newcastle said no to that, and poor old Bobby was devastated. He really wanted to do it, and I don’t really see why he couldn’t have done so. After all, it was never the intention to have Bobby for more than that one game. What we said to Newcastle was: “Look, we don’t want your manager full-time because it’s not the future for us, but depending on who we go for [we didn’t want to give away who we were after], could we have him part-time?” Once we couldn’t get him, we made the decision to promote Peter and Steve. The reason for that was that Bobby was unique. He’d done the job before, and everybody would know that he wasn’t going to be our future because of his age. There was no point drafting somebody else in for one game, better to go with youth.’

Eriksson’s decision had been quickly made. He said: ‘My intention had been to stay another year with Lazio, but when the offer from the FA came, I immediately felt: “This is exactly what I want to do.” Such an offer comes only once in a lifetime. I never analysed the risks involved. I never thought: “I might not succeed.” On the contrary, I thought: “If I don’t accept, I won’t be able to sleep at night, wondering what I could have done with the job.” My intuition told me what to do, as it has done every time a new offer has come up. Of course it was a big change to take on England, but it was a bigger step, and an even greater risk, to move from the little village of Torsby and the coaching job with Degerfors to a club the size of Gothenburg. The step from Rome to London didn’t feel as big.’

He had not given much thought to being a foreigner. ‘Sweden had an English coach [George Raynor] in 1958, when they went to the World Cup finals. Why, then, shouldn’t a Swede take England? I read the book The Second Most Important Job In The Country, which is all about the England managers from 1949 through to Kevin Keegan. It showed that all of them were declared idiots at some time, even Sir Alf Ramsey, so I knew what to expect.’

It was as well that he was prepared. The FA’s decision to appoint their first non-English manager in 128 years of international football immediately polarized public opinion. John Barnwell of the League Managers’ Association and Gordon Taylor of the PFA objected strongly, on the grounds that the job should always go to an Englishman. Barnwell described it an ‘an insult’ to his members, and Taylor accused the Football Association of ‘betraying their heritage’. Their comments were widely reported, and, as tends to be the way of it, the newspapers split roughly on tabloid-broadsheet lines, with the likes of The Times and the Daily Telegraph open-minded while others were anything but. The Sun was at its most xenophobic, declaring: ‘The nation which gave the game of football to the world has been forced to put a foreign coach in charge of its national team for the first time in its history. What a climbdown. What a humiliation. What a terrible, pathetic, self-inflicted indictment. What an awful mess.’ Jeff Powell, in the Daily Mail, was outraged, fulminating: ‘England’s humiliation knows no end. In their trendy eagerness to appoint a designer manager, did the FA pause for so long as a moment to consider the depth of this insult to our national pride? We sell our birthright down the fjord to a nation of seven million skiers and hammer throwers who spend half their year living in total darkness.’ The speed with which these opinions changed, once Eriksson’s England started winning, will be seen later.

The new manager was presented to the English media at the ungodly hour of 8am on 2 November 2000. The venue chosen was the Sopwell House Hotel, St Albans, which is convenient for Luton airport, and the time unusually early to enable Eriksson to get back to Rome (by private plane, of course) in time to take Lazio’s training that afternoon. His arrival at the hotel, which used to be Arsenal’s training base, was akin to a presidential procession. Surrounded by FA flunkies, who resembled an FBI close protection squad, his every step through the corridors was tracked by television camera crews, whose lights had him transfixed, like a startled rabbit caught in the headlamps of an oncoming car. The tabloid rottweilers were out in force, scrutinizing his every move and nuance. Much was made of the fact that he wore a poppy, with Remembrance Day in the offing. The Daily Express sarcastically (but accurately) observed that, coming from a nation of pacifists, he must have had it pinned on him by one of the FA’s spin doctors.

Once television and radio had finished playing ‘how-do-you-feel?’ softball, the press let fly with a few bumpers. Eriksson had little experience of English football, how was his knowledge? Could he name, say, the Leicester City goalkeeper, or the Sunderland left-back? He failed on both counts, and there were those (the author among them) who took delight in pointing out that the two players in question, Ian Walker and Michael Gray, should both be in contention for places in the next England squad. What about David Beckham? Was his best position on the right of midfield or in the centre? ‘Please don’t ask me that today,’ Eriksson said. ‘For sure he’s a great player, but I think I need at least a couple of practices with him before I decide that.’

What did he have to do to turn the England team into winners? ‘The most important thing, as always, is to create a good ambience within the group. If you don’t have that feeling, you will never get good results.’ Tactically, he was not prepared to disclose whether he would be playing 4–4–2 or 4–3–3. ‘But the players’ attitude to the game is much more important, and much more difficult to get right, than finding a formation.’ He was not going to discuss individual players before he started working with them. What he would say was that there was no question of abandoning the 2002 World Cup and concentrating on building beyond it. ‘I think you can do both. Of course you should plan for the future, but to give up on qualifying for the World Cup would be very stupid. As long as there is the slightest possibility still there, you should go for it. I think it is possible to win the group. Even second place in qualifying could get you a gold medal in the end. Give up at this stage? I don’t know those words. I never give up.’

Eriksson met every googly with a bat of Boycottesque straightness, hiding behind his unfamiliarity with the language when it suited his purpose, to the frustration of his inquisitors. Rob Shepherd, then of the Daily Express, whose nononsense directness has been the bane of many a manager’s life, turned to me afterwards and said: ‘Christ, to think it’s going to be like that for the next five years.’

It was announced at the press conference, almost by way of afterthought, that Eriksson’s number two at Lazio, Tord Grip, would be coming with him to England, as David Dein put it: ‘as his eyes and ears’. In fact Grip, unlike his boss, was released immediately by his Italian employers, and was scouting in England for three months before Eriksson finally arrived to join him. It was Grip, for example, who spotted, and recommended, Chris Powell, the 30–something Charlton Athletic full-back, who was the first rabbit to be pulled from the new managerial hat.

England’s next game, however, was the friendly fixture against Italy in Turin, where Eriksson and Grip were no more than observers. It was left to Peter Taylor to start the overdue process of rejuvenation with a young, forward-looking squad, and a team led by David Beckham for the first time. England lost 1–0, but gave a good account of themselves and Eriksson, who attended the match, was encouraged by the likes of Gareth Barry, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher and Kieron Dyer. His tenure was brief, but Taylor served England well by giving younger players the opportunity to catch the eye. The public liked what they saw, and Eriksson had a fair wind.

Meanwhile, events had taken a turn for the worse at Lazio. The revelation that their coach was keen to leave them for pastures new did nothing for the players’ motivation, and after the England announcement, on 2 November, Lazio’s form disintegrated. They won only six of 14 games, dropping to fifth in Serie A, and Eriksson saw his Champions’ League dream turn to ashes with defeats by Leeds and Anderlecht. By the turn of the year it was apparent that one manager could not properly serve two masters, and on 9 January 2001 Eriksson resigned at Lazio to devote his full attention to England.

The quick-break decision had been made in a petrol station, during the drive to training. It was then that he realized he was running on empty. ‘I just knew I couldn’t go on.’ Minutes later, he drove through the gates of Formello and told his players he was on his way. There were tears, and later an emotional meeting with Cragnotti. At a highly charged press conference, Cragnotti said the man who took Lazio to the title would always find a home back in Rome. ‘I want to see you back here, celebrating a long list of victories with England.’ To which Eriksson leaned across and told him: ‘Yes, and with the World Cup.’

Breaking his contract had cost Eriksson £1.3m, but money was the last thing on his mind. ‘I didn’t like what I did, but it was best for the club. Results in football are everything, and the results had been bad. It was better for Lazio to have somebody else come in and administer the shock that was needed.’

The Lazio fans had been resentful when the news broke of his imminent defection, but that same night he was given a standing ovation when he took his seat for a match against the Chinese national team, which was part of Lazio’s centenary celebrations. The warmth of the reception melted ‘The Ice Man’, reducing him to tears. ‘And believe me, I am not a man who cries easily.’ Cragnotti led the Roman salute, with the words: ‘It is only right that Lazio applauds the man who gave us so much.’

A delighted Crozier was relieved that the waiting was over. He remembered it thus: ‘Lazio found that once it was announced that Sven was going to be the England manager, the public profile that goes with that job made it impossible for him to continue in Rome. There were English journalists camped outside the training ground every day and, as a lot of managers have found, once the players know you are going, discipline and motivation is eroded. It was a difficult situation all round, and just before Christmas we all agreed that, even with the best intentions, the halfway house arrangement just wasn’t going to work. Events were conspiring to make it in the interests of all parties to say: “That’s it. Let’s move on.”’

CHAPTER FIVE THE MAN AND HIS METHODS

‘Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.’

WALTER BAGEHOT, Social scientist 1826–1877.

It ill behoves a newspaperman to say it, but the most perspicacious comment I have heard, or read, about Sven-Goran Eriksson’s public persona came from the BBC’s Head of Sport, Peter Salmon. Contrasting Eriksson’s detached, almost introverted manner with the rentaquote familiarity of his predecessors, Salmon said: ‘The interesting thing about the England managers that I’ve seen is that the closer we’ve got to them, the more difficult the relationship becomes. You’re no longer as impressed as you were in the days when they were still remote figures. The better we know them, the less we respect them. Eriksson has brought the authority back to his position. He’s rather mysterious, hard to get a handle on. We feel there must be a lot going on up there. We might not know what it is, but it has obviously got results.’ It was only when we got to know the man that he lost a lot of our respect.

Salmon’s theme was echoed by Gareth Southgate, the most erudite and articulate of all England players, who says: ‘The fact that we didn’t really know him is a tremendous strength for a manager to have. That distance brought him more respect. Because we didn’t know too much about him, and vice-versa, he was able to detach himself when he made decisions. He took those decisions purely on the basis of the players he saw and the form they were in. One of his strengths has been concentrating on performance. Because he’s from another country, the nationalistic pride of playing for England hasn’t been at the forefront of his thinking. We’re all very proud to play for England, that goes without saying, but that’s also true of every other country. Every team we face is going to be passionate about playing for their country, so you have to produce the quality to be better than them. He has been able to distinguish between the two elements, and I think these players are more comfortable with that than people were in the past.’

Eriksson was neither a ranter and raver, nor a John Bull patriot. ‘At half-time,’ Southgate says, ‘he won’t talk for maybe five minutes, until everybody has calmed down and got their thoughts together. As a manager, you need to get your message across in a short space of time, and flying off the handle isn’t constructive. He never shouted at us, but then I don’t think there’s been a performance where he’s needed to. He has a calming, relaxing influence that helps. If you get a manager who is agitated and not totally in control, I’m sure it transmits itself to the players.’

People who have played for, or worked with, him are among the best equipped to define Eriksson’s je ne sais quoi. David Platt, recruited by Eriksson to manage the England Under-21 team, comes into both categories. He told me: ‘In my two years at Sampdoria, playing for him, I knew I enjoyed his training, I knew I enjoyed working for him and I had massive respect for him, but when people asked me why, I could never put my finger on it. Now that he’s over here, and I’m working for him again, I think about it a lot, but I still can’t hang my hat on what it is that he’s got. I could eulogize, and come out with all sorts of things, but then you’d go to him and he’d probably say: “No, I’m not like that at all.” I don’t think he has ever consciously decided: “Right, this is the way I’m going to be.” It’s just the way he has evolved.

‘I think he gets his respect from his ruthlessness. He doesn’t come across that way, and nobody is ever frightened of him, but he does command total respect. Everybody understands that if you don’t do whatever he wants, or if you fall below his standards, he’ll have you out and lose no sleep over it. There are no favourites, no concessions made. He loved Roberto Mancini, but he left him out at Lazio, and doing it didn’t bother him at all. Sven is controlled, and in control, whatever he does. At Sampdoria, he never came into the dressing room at half-time angry. He was always calm, and if he did have a go at us he was always totally in control of his emotions.

‘Mancini came out with a good statement the other day, to the effect that things don’t annoy Sven. He’s an enigma in that respect. I really don’t know if it’s a conscious effort on his part, telling himself: “I’m not going to let this get to me.” It’s probably a characteristic he’s developed over his career. You can imagine the politicking that goes on within the FA, and sometimes it gets me stirred up. I find myself thinking: “What on earth is going on here?”, and it must be so much worse for Sven. There are obstacles put in his way that would make a saint swear, but his attitude is always: “Fair enough, I’ll come at this a different way.” Nothing seems to annoy him, or knock him out of his stride. He follows his own path, and won’t veer off it, come what may.’

The furore over whether Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate of Leeds United should be chosen for England after the Sarfraz Nejeib court case provided a good example of Eriksson’s single-minded approach. He wanted to pick both players, despite FA disapproval. Platt, who was party to the discussions on the subject, explained: ‘I warned Sven that if he picked them, there would be a media circus, and other people at the FA spelled that out to him, but his reaction was: “Well, I’ll deal with it.” Not “Bloody hell, perhaps I’d better avoid all that.” You can imagine other people, myself included, thinking: “Hang on, let’s work out the pros and cons here – where could this all lead?” For Sven, the court had administered justice, and now it was 100 per cent about football and nothing to do with what the reaction might be. If you present him with a major problem, he has the ability to absorb it and deal with it. There’s no panic, no “How are we going to get out of this one?” He’s very good like that. I think the politics he had to handle in Italy equipped him for just about anything.’

On the training pitch, Eriksson worked by the power of suggestion. ‘A good phrase, that,’ Platt said. ‘He would stand there while we were playing a practice match, and he might walk over to me, and then Attilio Lombardo, and say “Why don’t you switch?” It wouldn’t be a case of stopping everything and saying: “Right, now I want you to do this.” He’d just sidle over every now and then and suggest something. Players would do it, and if it worked it would become ingrained in their subconscious. With good players, that’s what happens – you don’t have to keep telling them over and over again. That way it becomes too robotic.’

A man of egalitarian principles, Eriksson does not hold with the concept of favourites, but Mancini came close to it, as did Jonas Thern, the multitalented Swedish midfielder who played for him at Benfica. Thern, recently manager at Halmstad, followed the same path, from part-time football in Sweden to the high-pressure environment of one of the most famous clubs in the world. In an interview for this book, he told me: ‘In Portugal, the country was different, the people were different and especially the football was different. It was more technical, and we trained much harder, as full-time professionals. In Sweden at that time, you had to have a job, as well as football, to make a good living, and I had been working for my father’s printing company in Malmo. In Portugal I went full-time, and found it hard work at first. Often we trained morning and afternoon.’

Thern’s mentor had been Roy Hodgson, who had signed him for Malmo. He says: ‘Roy and Bob Houghton, when they came to Sweden in the late seventies, made Swedish football what it is today. They brought English organisation to our game and a new way of playing. Instead of standing off and counter-attacking they pressed when the opposition had the ball. They introduced all the things I’d seen as a kid every Saturday when I watched English football on television. There was conflict in Sweden before that style was accepted, but after a few years even the most conservative Swedish trainers changed over to the new, English approach. Nowadays, Swedish trainers are brought up on the methods and style of play that Roy and Bob brought over. ‘Svennis’ [as Eriksson is known to friends and family] made minor changes to suit Swedish players better, and when those changes took full effect, he won the UEFA Cup with Gothenburg.

‘When we were at Benfica, they weren’t a really rich club, but they had enough money to sign good players, and they also had their famous name to trade on. It was quite something to pull on the shirt of Benfica, with all their history. I think we had a squad of 24, and every one of them was an international of some sort. You expected to win things with players like that around you. Svennis was good at bringing the best out of everyone and finding their best roles. He’s very clever at moulding players so that they fit together to form the best possible team. Stefan Schwarz [another Swede] was a good example. He got the best out of him, to the benefit of the team, at left-back, left-wing and centre midfield.’

Thern admitted that he was basing his own managerial style on Eriksson’s. ‘I learned a lot from Svennis, sometimes without knowing it at the time. The way to treat people, for one thing. Whatever the circumstances, whether they criticise or support him, he always tries to treat everyone the same. Also, he has an aura of calmness around him that he brings to his teams. He is a person you like to listen to because when he says something it is always interesting, always constructive and beneficial. As a player, he makes you feel confident. If you are worried about your form, and you go to him for advice, he’ll always be reassuring. He’ll say: “No problem. Everybody has their ups and downs, trainers as well as players. Just keep on working on what you are good at. I know that when you are in good shape, you’re one of the best.” After you’d been talking to him, you felt: “He thinks I’m one of the best players in Europe and he’s a top trainer, so he can’t be wrong.” In a couple of minutes he’d have restored your self-confidence. He’s very good at building that up, for his players and his teams.’

In common with every other player who has spoken on the subject, Thern had never seen Eriksson lose that famous self-control. ‘I never heard him even raise his voice in the three years I played for him at Benfica. But as soon as he came into the dressing room at half-time, you knew if he was not satisfied. It was a case of: “Oh oh, best to be quiet here and just listen.” He wouldn’t shout. He just stared at you and immediately you knew you had to play much better in the second half, otherwise you’d be off and dropped from the team. He didn’t have to say anything. That look of his said it all.’

Thern explained: ‘Sometimes we’d start a game and wouldn’t be playing well and the opposition would be in command. He’d spot it from the bench and change things very quickly. He’d swap players around or change formation, from four in midfield to five. He was particularly good at knowing what the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses were. I remember when we were playing Porto once he said: “They’re a bit lacking here, on the left”, so we knew exactly where to concentrate our attacks. It sounds obvious and easy, but you’d be surprised how many trainers don’t brief their teams like that. I had a lot of big-name trainers after Svennis. Some of them were good coaches during games, some of them good only at giving instruction during the week. Sven is spot on at both. Overall, he’s the best I’ve played for.’

There had been no favouritism shown towards, and certainly no socialising with, the Swedish triumvirate (Thern, Schwarz and leading scorer Mats Magnusson) at Benfica. Thern had heard that Eriksson had been closer to his players at Gothenburg, but said: ‘I think the relationship has to be different in the professional world. For example, sometimes the Swedish players at Benfica would ask for an extra day when we went home for Christmas. He’d say: “I know you’ll behave if you have another day away from the club, but I can’t be seen to be favouring you because you are Swedish.” He always made a point of treating all his players equally.

‘Yes, he kept his distance, and I think that’s very important for a trainer in the professional game. You have to have a good relationship with your players, but you mustn’t get too close. Everybody has to know who’s boss.’

Peter Taylor was England’s caretaker before Eriksson took charge, and continued as part of the new coaching set-up until his work at Leicester City precluded further involvement. He says: ‘All of a sudden, I got the opportunity to be caretaker manager for a non-qualifying game, and decided that I had enough good, young players who could do well. I’m not sure Italy tried that hard against us, but we did do well. Sven looked at that game and saw decent performances without players like Campbell, Scholes, Owen and Gerrard, and thought: “We’re not bad at all.” We had a new, foreign manager, fresh to the players, who were starting to feel more together. We played Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in Italy, and everybody seemed to want to join in. For Sven’s first game, against Spain, we had a golf competition at the hotel, and again everybody wanted to do it. The team spirit started to look very good. Players changed from being low on confidence to being on a high, and they’re good enough to take some stopping when they’re like that.’

Of Eriksson’s personality, Taylor added: ‘They [the players] love his calmness. They like the fact that he lets people get on with their work. They like his sense of humour. They know he’s got a fantastic background. With a CV like his, he’d cracked it before he walked through the door. And they enjoy listening to him talk. It’s not complicated stuff, it just makes loads of sense to the players. The last time I was fully involved was Greece away [6 June 2001] and I’ve never seen such a confident group. We could have beaten anybody.’

Ruud Gullit played for Eriksson for two season at Sampdoria, and holds the man, and his methods, in the highest esteem. In an interview for this book, the 1987 World Footballer of the Year told me: ‘Milan wouldn’t play me regularly, they said I had knees of glass, so I went to Sampdoria in 1993 and played nearly every game. We came third in Serie A and won the Italian Cup. Nobody thought we had it in us, but the key was how Eriksson handled everything. I was really charmed by him. He’s a real gentleman. If you didn’t do what he wanted, or just did your own thing, his character meant that it would only affect you. He was so nice, such a good man in the way he treated people that it seemed rude, as well as silly, not to do what he asked. Because of the regard we all had for him, he never had to raise his voice to anyone. He would talk to you, one-on-one, in a very civilised way. He was genuinely interested in you, personally – not just what you were doing on the pitch.’

Juan-Sebastian Veron was first brought to Europe by Eriksson, who signed him for Sampdoria from Boca Juniors of Argentina. Veron, who won Serie A with Eriksson at Lazio, said the Swede was a more straightforward personality than Sir Alex Ferguson. ‘Eriksson is the same person inside the dressing room as outside. Ferguson will challenge the team with strong words, which is not Eriksson’s way. For me, the best coach is the one who is best at building a relationship with his players, so that they feel at ease, feel supported. When, sitting on the bench, there is more than just a coach but a friend too, you perform to the best of your ability. There aren’t many like that, but it is the mark of Eriksson.’

John Barnwell, of the League Managers’ Association, and Gordon Taylor, of the Professional Footballers’ Association, had both objected strongly to England’s appointment of a foreigner. Barnwell described it an ‘an insult’ to his members, and Taylor accused the Football Association of ‘betraying their heritage’. Within a year, they were completely won over. Barnwell now says: ‘His [Eriksson’s] achievements have been quite stunning. He has created an atmosphere of trust with the managers of the top league clubs and he has used commonsense to handle fragile relationships. As a result, not one manager in the country would say anything detrimental about his approach or his attitude. There’s a confidence and an understanding and a great optimism for the future.’

Taylor said: ‘One thing he has brought with him is an aura of stillness, which is particularly useful in moments of crisis. He deals sensibly with problems and instils confidence in the players. His philosophy is that you’re never as bad as they say, and probably never as good either. You just need to know what you’re aiming for. He’s got a good understanding of footballers, and he treats them with respect. There’s an element of Alf Ramsey in him, and that kind of loyalty to players can make the difference when it comes to the crunch. In those respects, he has been a very good influence.’

David Beckham, the England captain, says: ‘Mr Eriksson has a lot of experience, and the players realize that. He trusts all of us to do our job, and every one of the players has got massive respect for him. That’s a vital thing for any manager.’

Glenn Hysen, a championship winner with Liverpool, played for Eriksson at Gothenburg and Fiorentina. He says: ‘When we first saw him, at Gothenburg, he seemed such a small guy that we didn’t think much of him. But when you’ve listened to what he has to say, you have to respect him. And you really do listen to him. He goes around the players, talks to them, jokes with them. He always used to get changed in the players’ dressing room. I don’t know if he still does that [he does]. He’s such a smart person. He knows a little about everything, not just football. I don’t think you could find anyone to say anything against him.

‘As a coach, he’s not a magician. His coaching is nothing unusual: blackboard, paper, charts, diagrams of free-kicks for and against. But he’s good at seeing what’s going wrong during a match.

Eriksson had the ‘karma’ of a latter-day Gandhi. ‘He always keeps a level head, especially in a crisis,’ Hysen added. ‘And he knows that even when he’s happy, and things are going well, it can all be different the next day. That knowledge helps to keep him calm at all times.’

Eriksson was Glenn Stromberg’s mentor with Gothenburg, in the Swedish Under-21 team and at Benfica. Stromberg says: ‘He was always very calm – and for the full 90 minutes. Many managers will panic after 80 minutes if things aren’t going their way. Not Sven. He knows it is as easy for his team to score at the end as it is at the beginning. He is a very hard-headed man, he goes his own way and whatever he thinks is right, he will do it to the very end. He never panics, and players like that. I think England benefited from that when they played Greece in the last of their World Cup qualifiers. When I played for him, there were many games like that, when we got important goals very late, or held out when it seemed impossible. At Gothenburg, and again at Benfica, the players came to think of him as a lucky manager, and themselves as a lucky team.’

At Benfica, Stromberg says, Eriksson was the voice of reason in the dressing room, rather than Mr Big. ‘He didn’t behave like some sort of genius who wanted everybody to know how many things he’d won. Some coaches are like that, but he certainly wasn’t. Each week, he just told the team how he wanted them to play. By personal example, he was good at creating the kind of hushed, thoughtful atmosphere you need in the dressing room before important games. When Sven left Benfica in 1983, I left as well. I knew it wouldn’t be as good there without him. He is the best coach I ever had, in a long career.

‘I’ve seen so many coaches who have thought one thing at the beginning of the season, then panicked and changed when results didn’t immediately go their way. They change players, change tactics, change their style of play, and how often does it pay off? Sven is always calm, and always sticks to his method. His strength of character is his biggest attribute.’

Stefan Schwarz, the Swedish international midfielder, won the Portuguese league and cup, and was a European Cup Finalist during Eriksson’s second spell at Benfica. Schwarz told me: ‘He’s also a very good psychologist, clever at getting into his players’ minds. At Benfica in those days he had Brazilians and Russians, as well as Portuguese and Swedes to deal with, and because his ability overall was so impressive, he commanded the respect of them all. He never raises his voice, and I think that’s because he doesn’t need to. You can see when he’s upset from the look on his face, and if you don’t respond the way he wants you to, you’ll be the one who suffers.’

England’s goalkeeper, David James, is also a fan, his comments clearly including a thinly veiled criticism of Eriksson’s predecessor, Kevin Keegan, whose relentless mateyness could be wearing. He said: ‘Mr Eriksson is one of the quieter managers I have worked with, but he is no less effective for that. You don’t necessarily want the boss plonking himself next to you every time you sit down for a bowl of soup. As a tactician, I would say that he puts the team together like a jigsaw. Different players are treated as individual pieces as he pulls them aside for a quiet chat, telling Michael Owen, for example, to run from deep. That conversation will be in isolation, but when the team comes together, all the pieces drop into place. The training is certainly more serious than under the last regime, with most of the work related to real match scenarios. Mr Eriksson, though, is very careful not to make it obvious from day one who is in his starting eleven, in case the other players switch off.’

The man himself borders on the esoteric when discussing his man-management catechism. ‘The ability to make the right decision, and then dare to do the right things in all situations, is decisive at the top of the modern game,’ he says. ‘If one player isn’t up for it mentally, the whole team can collapse. When we have to give a performance – a competition, a match, some task at work – there are two forces inside us, pulling in different directions. One is ambition, and this is a positive force. Our ambition wants us to improve, to succeed, to attain the goals we have set ourselves. The other force is performance anxiety. This is a negative force. It produces a fear of failing, of making mistakes, of disgracing ourselves and, as a result, of not being accepted by others. These “others” might be our trainer, our teammates, the media, the supporters and, in everyday life, friends, neighbours and workmates.’

Eriksson works on accentuating the positive and eliminating this fear of failure, in the belief that mental strength is ultimately decisive. He reasons: ‘If you look at the top footballers, playing ability among many of them is very even. We can’t train more than we do, we’re already at the maximum that players can take nowadays, so it is mental differences which will decide who the real winners are.’

From day one at Lazio, and again with England, he had set out to break down the mental barriers that prevented players from going beyond the limit of what they believed was possible. ‘We often find it difficult, both intellectually and emotionally, to accept a sufficiently high level for our performance,’ he says. ‘We dare not pass our upper limit and reach our maximum. We have an inner mental barrier that stops us from succeeding, and have to break through the barriers we mentally erect that prevent us from using all our resources. For a long time, it was considered impossible to run a mile under four minutes, but then Roger Bannister did so, and it was not long before a number of other runners managed it. Bannister showed that it was permitted to run that quickly. Any breaking through such barriers has to be done first in the mind. The mind must prepare the way for the body.’

He invited the England players to try a mental exercise. They were to think about the phrases ‘I must’, ‘I should’, and ‘I’ve got to’. Then think of ‘I want to’, ‘I’ll have a go’, and ‘I can’. He explained: ‘It is fairly natural that we will not perform as well if we are forced to do something, rather than being free to do the same thing. It is also true that many sportsmen feel an unexpressed compulsion from their environment to reach certain goals. A typical example of the wrong type of thinking is the thought: “I mustn’t miss.” Close your eyes, relax and imagine you are in a match that is coming up. You see yourself on the pitch and you think: “Must, should, got to”. How do you feel? Don’t you feel that your personality withers and your mood sinks? After a moment or two, repeat the exercise, but think instead: “I want to”, “I’ll have a go”, “I can”. You immediately feel better, you’re practically raring to go.’

On less esoteric lines, Eriksson articulates his managerial style as follows: ‘First of all, the leader must be a complete master of what he is going to teach others, and he must also dare to be himself. Don’t try to be somebody else, or you will be found out very quickly. I would feel extremely stupid if I were to stand at the bench screaming and whistling at the players and the referee.

‘There must always be a target, or goal, and clear lines: “This is the way I want you to play football.” As a leader, you must be clear in what you say and explain everything to the group so that they really understand what you have in mind. When you have come that far, only one thing remains, and that may well be the most difficult one: having everybody in the team accept it. The important thing is having everyone understand that this is an agreement. Everybody must be moving in the same direction.

‘You have to be generous with praise, but in sport the big reward is the event itself. That’s where sport is simple and straightforward – win or lose, reward or punishment. You must set your goals high, but they must be realistic ones. You cannot go around promising titles if the material at your disposal is not good enough to do it. There is also the matter of fingertip feeling and intuition, which I think all good bosses have. When, as a coach, you have a team which is a goal or two down at half-time, you have to do something about it. Often it comes down to changing one or two players. It is a decision which seldom has a logical basis, but something has to be done. It does not always change the outcome of a game, but if it works, you will be called a genius.’

So is he a genius? He smiled at the suggestion. ‘A bit of modesty does not hurt. During the success of the past few years, more than once I have had to pinch myself. Then I say: “Hey there, Sven, you were born in Torsby.” By remembering your origins you get the proportions right in life.’

CHAPTER SIX AN ENFIELD TOWN FULL-BACK

Sven-Goran Eriksson spends nearly every Christmas at the parental home in Torsby, and if you saw the place you wouldn’t blame him. To visit this sleepy, snowy Swedish village in winter is to be put in mind of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas idyll, and to wonder how anybody could ever leave.

Sven-Goran was born on 5 February 1948, while the rest of the world was preoccupied with Gandhi’s assassination and the gathering crisis in Berlin. He was the first child for Sven senior, a 19-year-old bus conductor, and Ulla, who supplemented the family income with a variety of jobs, which took her behind the counter at the village newsagent and later to the local hospital, as an auxiliary.

Torsby these days is ‘New England’ in more ways than one, a postcard-pretty collection of clapboard houses surrounded by frozen forest and lakes. Originally a centre for iron production, drawing on power from the Klaralven, or Clear river, there is no industry to speak of now. There is a high-tech, state-of-the-art sawmill, owned by the Finns, and a small electronics plant, but the main employer is the hospital. With a population of 5,000, the village is the municipality for the northern part of the mostly wooded picturesque province of Varmland, which measures some 200 km in length. The region prospers on two tourist seasons, catering for all the usual winter sports and summer activities like canoeing and rafting. Lake Vanern, the largest in Scandinavia, is a magnet for anglers, while for wildlife enthusiasts there are elk and wolves in abundance. The wolf is Varmland’s official emblem.

It is against this bucolic background that young Sven, or ‘Svennis’ as he was quickly to become known, was raised. He grew up in a small, working-class home – so small that a lounge-diner-kitchenette was the main living room. A neighbour recalled: ‘They weren’t poor, but they had hard times. There were not many luxuries.’ It was a close family, in every sense, and the England coach still talks to his parents on the telephone every day.

Ski jumping, with a club called SK Bore, was his passion more than football when he was very young. He told me: ‘I learned from the age of five, and became quite good at it. With the club, I travelled all over Varmland, and into Norway, for competitions. It is a sport you have to start when you are very young, and have no fear. You’d never dare to have a go when you were older. The trouble was, when I was little they didn’t have skis for kids, we had to use adult ones. To get mine to the top of the slope, ready to push off, I had to carry them up one at a time. They were very heavy for a little boy, much too heavy to take two.’ In common with all the other children making their first jump, the diminutive Svennis started at 15 ft, before eventually working his way up to 65. ‘I loved it,’ he says, ‘but by the age of 15 I had to choose between ski jumping and football, and football won.’

The extremes in Swedish society made him a young socialist of the old school. ‘When I was young, I was far out on the left politically. I thought everything was unfair then. I was never politically active, but I was radical in my opinion.’ A friend from his teenage days said: ‘One of his dreams, when he was 19 or 20, was to move to South America, buy a plantation there and be nice to the workers, paying them well. He wanted to be a philanthropist.’

Charity had its limits, however. Sven’s brother Lars, eight years his junior, recalls how Sven always had to beat him at everything, irrespective of the age difference. ‘He was very competitive, even when I was little.’

Eriksson is a typical product of his environment, according to Mats Olsson, of the Torsby Tourist Bureau, who has worked with him in promoting the area. Olsson told me: ‘If you meet his parents, you will see where he got his calmness and laid-back character from. He’s a typical guy from around here. We have a saying that goes: “Let ordnar sig alltid, och om det inte gor det, sa kvittar det.” Roughly translated, it means: “Everything will fix itself, and if it doesn’t it won’t be so bad.”’ Eriksson knows the adage well, but while he accepts the translation, he prefers his own interpretation. ‘I like to think it means: “Don’t worry about things you have no control over,” which is a good way to live your life.’ He accepts that the pace of life is very different in Varmland, which is backwoods in more ways than one. ‘Their attitude is: “Never do today what can be put off until tomorrow.” It must be nice to be able to live that way, stress-free.’

Discussing old times with Eriksson’s parents is no longer easy. My predecessor at The Sunday Times, Brian Glanville, tells a story about two groups of journalists, tabloid and broadsheet, journeying together through the desert. Stumbling upon an oasis, the broadsheet boys fall to their knees to drink, only to spot the tabloid hacks relieving themselves upstream. The waters around Torsby have been well and truly poisoned by the redtops, whose foot-in-the-door intrusions in search of dirt at the time of Eriksson’s appointment have left the locals wary, and sometimes downright hostile, to English visitors. His friends are very, very protective, and in the case of Sven and Ulla Eriksson, reporters from their son’s adopted country are no longer welcome. ‘They have had a bad rap from your people, who came pestering them, knocking on their door uninvited and misquoting them to make their stories more dramatic,’ Olsson explained. ‘The English reporters made them almost reclusive.’

Sven-Goran told me: ‘If you go to see them now, they will welcome you, and give you coffee, but they won’t tell you much I’m afraid. They learned to be like that the hard way. It started as soon as the FA offered me the job. In the next few days they [the tabloid press] interviewed my mother, my brother in Portugal, my son in America, my ex-wife, who I hadn’t seen for six years, my ex-mother-in-law and my old maths teacher in Torsby. I want to be friendly, but I must try to defend my privacy and my family, especially when lies are written.’

Understandable this may be, but it is also a great pity, not least because the Erikssons have an interesting story to tell. In an interview conducted through a third party, Ulla said: ‘His [Sven-Goran’s] foundations are still very much in the Torsby values we have here. We care deeply about home, family, community, hard work and respect. I think he has carried those values with him all his life, and he takes them with him in his work. He tries to instil these values in his football teams. When he was young, it was always sport, sport and more sport. In the summer months we only ever saw him at mealtimes. He would go out in the morning and only return to the house to eat. Then he would be out again, always to the athletics track or football pitch. It was the same during the winter. Then it would be skiing, skating and hockey. He was best at ski jumping. He was never afraid of how dangerous it might be. Sometimes he would fall, but he was never seriously injured.

‘Sport always came first in his life, but he was good at school as well. He loved to read books anything from children’s adventure stories to Hemingway. I had to join a book club just to keep up with his hunger for reading. His school grades were good, but he always did best at sport. With most children, if you throw a ball to them, they will try to catch it and throw it back to you. Sven didn’t. He always wanted to kick it. If there was no ball, he would make do with anything, usually stones in the street. I remember dressing him up in his best clothes and a new pair of shoes for a day out, and while he was waiting he went outside and had a kick around. His shoes were almost ruined. When I told him off, he said: “You won’t be saying that when I’m a football star.”’

Sven senior says of his pride and joy: ‘Even when he was young, he had the sort of mind which wanted to analyse everything he did. He kept a notebook to record all his performances and chart his progress at every sport. He was a well-behaved boy. He kept himself too busy to get into any trouble. But we never pushed him into anything. We just wanted him to grow up a good person and to fulfil himself.’

Sven remembers watching English football on television every Saturday. ‘From when I was about 14, I sat down with my father every Saturday afternoon and didn’t move. It was the highlight of the week. When I was younger, I supported Liverpool.’ And now? ‘Today I support England, no club team.’

A visit to the young Svennis’s secondary school, Frykenskolan, found his old maths teacher, Mats Jonsson, happy to reminisce about his most celebrated former pupil, who lived just across the road, 50 metres from the schoolhouse. Jonsson, 65 but still teaching part-time, also coached Torsby when Eriksson started playing, and told me: ‘I had him in my maths class from 13 to 16. He was a clever boy. Very quiet and calm. He did everything I hoped he would do. He was always a pleasant pupil. I had a class of just over 30, and he was always in the upper half at maths.

‘He played football every day, it was always his passion. I was the coach at Torsby FC at the time, and when he was 16 he came to play there. He was in the first team at 17, but while he was always regarded as a good footballer at school, at club level he was never more than second rate. He wasn’t top class, never a remarkable player. But in football, as at school, he worked very hard and made the best of himself. At that time, we played with two markers and three players just in front of them, and he played on the right of those three. Today, you would probably call it right wing-back. It was a role for which he had to be very fit. It was a hard job I know, I’ve tried it myself – always up and back, up and back. Sven was always a hard worker, so it suited him. When he went on to play for better teams, it was as an out-and-out defender. Eventually, he was right-back in a 4–4–2 formation.

‘We had a good team when he was here. We were in the Third Division for three years, then we got relegated. I have to say we had better – players in that Torsby team, but he was always a very nice person to work with. When I told him to do something, he did it. You could always rely on him. As a coach, you have to say to a player: “You do that, and don’t worry about anything else.” If I taught him anything, it was that. The team worked in zones. We divided the pitch into zones, and in your zone, you were the boss. You might be needed to help out elsewhere, but first and foremost you had to be in control of your own area. It’s the same today, and I like to think I gave Svennis a little bit of grounding there.’ Eriksson smiled at the notion. ‘Mats was a nice man, but he knew nothing about football,’ he told me. ‘When he was in charge, we did a lot of running. That’s all I remember.’

Academically, the young Eriksson was a diligent, above-average rather than brilliant scholar. The school records are kept on file at the municipal offices in Torsby where, obliging to a startling degree for a Brit accustomed to bureaucratic bloody-mindedness, they searched the vaults and came up with Svennis’s exam papers. In his last year at Frykenskolan, aged 16, he gained very respectable grades in all subjects, doing best in maths, where he was marked AB. In Swedish language, an essay entitled ‘A Summer Place’ brought him a BA, and he gained the same grade in English, where a paper notable for its meticulous, painstaking writing included the translation of such portentous phrases as ‘He looked at me with pain-filled eyes,’ and ‘They’re going to X-ray him soon.’ The marker’s corrective red ink was in evidence only once, where Eriksson had written: ‘I finely [sic] knew my husband would bee [sic] alive.’ It will do his reputation with England fans no harm at all that his worst subject was German, where he got a straight B, one delicious howler seeing his word ‘Chou’ [sic,] corrected to ‘Auf Wiedersehen’.

‘My English wasn’t up to much, but I was good at writing when I was at school,’ Eriksson says. ‘I wrote a lot about Ernest Hemingway and his life. He was my favourite author. I also read a lot about the Greek philosophers. For a time, I wanted to be a writer – a sports reporter – and I thought about going to a sports journalism college.’

At Torsby FC – the ground is called ‘Bjornevi’, or ‘Bear Meadow’ – there is Eriksson memorabilia everywhere. There are bigger, better stadia to be found in non-league football in England, but the importance of this one to the local community extends way beyond its raison d’etre, and on my various visits there were Mothers’ Union meetings, IT for Beginners classes, and sundry similar extracurricular activities making use of the clubhouse facilities. On entering, the first thing you notice, immediately to the left, is an impressive trophy cabinet with more than 50 exhibits, central to which is a framed portrait of Eriksson in England garb. Closer examination reveals an autographed picture of the England squad, next to the Junior Football Shield 1999 and the Svennis Cup for Boys and Girls (10–13 age group). There are pennants from every club Eriksson has managed, a framed picture of Sampdoria, 1992/93 vintage (Des Walker to the fore) and, tucked away above a waste bin bearing the legend ‘Knickers’, Torsby team groups from 1966 and 1967, featuring a youthful Svennis, complete with luxuriant blond thatch.

When I called, nobody at the club spoke English, but the two old stalwarts present could not have been more helpful. By sign language, a man who appeared to be the caretaker indicated that I should follow him, and took me on a five-minute drive to meet one of Eriksson’s former teammates and best friends, Morgan Oldenmark (formerly known as Karlsson) who, together with his brother, runs the family printing business. Morgan (he changed to his wife’s surname because Karlsson is so common in Sweden), played in the same Torsby team as Eriksson before the latter left in 1971. Oldenmark, né Karlsson, was a striker, Eriksson played right-back. ‘Sven did nothing special, he just did his job,’ his friend recalled. ‘He was a good player for a coach to have. He did what he was told. He never lost his composure, or his temper, never shouted. He was a fine person. He was quiet, but he did have a sense of humour. He liked to laugh, and when we all went out together he’d enjoy himself and behave just like everyone else. He wasn’t always, how do you English say it? A goody-goody.

‘When a few of us went to Austria, skiing, we shared a room and he enjoyed himself all right. He was quite a good ski jumper, and when we were alpine skiing he’d never make any of the turns I made to slow down. He was fearless, never afraid of the speed of the downhill. Another time, when he was playing for Sifhalla, Torsby went on a trip to Gran Canaria – no more than a holiday, really and Sven came with us.’ To emphasize Eriksson’s sociability, Morgan produced snaps of the players on sun loungers by the swimming pool, the England manager-to-be clearly having a laddish good time. ‘Sven has always been a bit reserved, but when he knows the company he does like a laugh.’

The man himself tells a slightly different story. ‘Being in the limelight has never appealed to me. At Christmas [2001] I was invited to a concert, and a dinner for 70 afterwards. I arrived at the concert after it had started, and then said “no” to the dinner. I don’t like the celebrity thing. If I go to a party, I prefer to sneak in and stand in the corner. I don’t want to appear to be better than anyone else because I don’t consider myself special. My parents were ordinary working-class people, and that has definitely influenced me.’

Torsby Football Club have had their days in the sun, too, and were in the top division in Sweden as recently as 1997. In Eriksson’s time, however, they were never better than Division Three. His first ‘trophy’, in the year England were winning the World Cup, was a tin of coffee presented to each of the Torsby players promoted to that level. Oldenmark spoke nostalgically of the era when 3,000 would turn out for the local derby against Rannberg. ‘Nowadays, it’s 150.’

When the teacher, Mats Jonsson, stopped coaching the club, the local baker, Sven-Ake Olsson, known as ‘Asen’, took over, using flour on a baking tray, in place of the conventional blackboard, to school Eriksson and company in tactics. His old protegé remembers him well – and not just for football. ‘I used to work in Asen’s bakery to make some money,’ Eriksson says. ‘He was good at his job – and he knew his football, too.’

Now in his mid-seventies, Olsson remembers his doughboy-cum-right-back for his activities off the field, rather than anything he did on it. ‘Sven never drank much, unlike the others, but he had plenty of female attention.’ Eriksson’s first serious relationship was with Nina Thornholm, a beauty pageant contestant he met on his 18th birthday. After dancing the foxtrot at the local hop, he escorted her home. ‘Nothing more.’ They dated for nearly a year (‘he was always well-mannered, very proper’, Nina, who is now in her fifties, insisted), eventually moving into a flat together. Earning next to nothing from what was virtually amateur football, Eriksson supported them by working in the social security office, dealing with sickness benefits, where his colleagues included Mats Jonsson’s wife. It was not the life he wanted, however, and the relationship foundered on his sporting ambitions.

At 19 he did his National Service, spending 12 months in the Swedish Army. It was not a regime he enjoyed. ‘It was compulsory, so I had to do it, but it was not my sort of life,’ he told me. ‘You knew when you woke up in the morning what you’d be doing every minute of the day until you went to bed at night, and that’s extremely boring. I’m not one who likes having everything regimented and programmed for him like that.’

It was with great relief that on demob he resumed his studies at Gymnasium Amal, a college 160 km from Torsby, and then at Orebro, where he took a university course in sports science. It was at teacher-training college, at Amal, that he met Ann-Christin Pettersson [‘Anki’ to her friends], the daughter of the principal. They started dating in 1970 and married on 9 July 1977. Intellectually well-matched, and both keen to better themselves, they seemed ideally suited. Their first child, Johan, was born on 27 May 1979.

Ann-Christin says: ‘His determination to achieve what he wanted in life was the first thing that appealed to me, so you could say football brought us together. He never gives in. He knows what he wants and goes for it. I should know. I was his wife for 23 years.’

While studying at Orebro, Eriksson joined Karlskoga, where Tord Grip was player-coach. It was a bigger club, with a modern stadium, but it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that Eriksson’s playing career was taking off. Sten Johansson, a midfielder, played in the same Karlskoga team and told me: ‘In those days, we were always mid-table in the Second Division. Sven was not much of a player, and never our first choice right-back. He came here, from Sifhalla, when he was studying at Orebro. It was his choice to come – the club didn’t go out to sign him, or anything like that. He asked to join because we were nearer to his studies. The club paid him almost nothing. I remember him as a good team man, nice to have around. He left when Tord took him to Degerfors, as assistant coach. That was the end of his playing career.’

He was not greatly missed. Bryan King, the former Millwall goalkeeper, has been living and working in Scandinavia since the 1970s as coach, manager, scout and players’ agent. He has known Eriksson since his playing days, and remembers him as ordinary, at best. ‘In English terms, I’d say he was an Enfield Town sort of full-back.’ The man himself feigns offence at that. ‘I wasn’t much of a player, but as far as I know, Bryan King never saw me play.’

Before he quit, Eriksson learned a valuable lesson. Playing for Karlskoga in a 3–0 defeat against Helsingborg in 1975 taught him, the hard way, to what extent full-backs were dependent upon protection. In his customary right-back station, he was given a never-to-be-forgotten run around by a fast winger by the name of Tom Johansson. ‘It was like a circus,’ Eriksson admitted. ‘It didn’t matter what I tried, he just disappeared away from me. I said: “Damn, I need support,” but at that time full-backs were not given support. They were good times for attackers, because there was so much space behind us. That game at Helsingborg changed my mind about defensive tactics, and made me think about pressing the opposition.’

Johansson, now a plumber in Helsingborg, said: ‘I don’t remember much about the game, but I do know that I was faster than him, and got past him three or four times.’ Another Helsingborg player that day, Thomas Sternberg, is now the club’s director of sport. He said: ‘Sven wasn’t a player you would notice. He did nothing to stand out. He wasn’t playing at the top level, so nobody had heard of Sven-Goran Eriksson at that time. In that game, Tom went past him a few times.

‘I’d say there is no great connection between being a good footballer and a good manager. Often it is just the opposite, and the players who are medium-grade have more to offer as coaches. Sven was not a great player, but he is a fantastic coach. The strong mentality all his teams have is unbelievable. We are very proud of him. He has been away a long time, and we are waiting for him to come home. I hope it will be as Sweden’s manager.’

CHAPTER SEVEN ON BOARD WITH TORD

‘Tord Grip is my eyes, and one of the best coaches in the world. Nobody has the feeling for football in his blood like he has.’

SVEN-GORAN ERIKSSON.

Tord Grip is Eriksson’s assistant and long-time confidante. They have a relationship that dates back over 30 years, during which time their roles have reversed. When they first worked together, in 1970, Grip was the manager and Eriksson the worst player in his run-of-the-mill team of Swedish part-timers. Later, Grip ran Sweden’s Under-21s, with Eriksson his assistant.

Tord Grip was born in 1938, one of four children fathered by a woodcutter in the tiny village of Ytterhogdal. There was no professional football in Sweden when he left school, so he went to work in the local bakery. By the time he was 18, his father had branched out into haulage, graduating from a horse to a tractor to a truck, and he invited young Tord to join the business but the offer was rejected. ‘It was heavy work, and I wasn’t built for that,’ Grip says. ‘The bakery was perfect. I started work at six in the morning and finished at two, so I had plenty of time for football.’ All the training paid off. At 18 he moved from the village team to Degerfors, in the top division of the Swedish league. ‘For the first year there I carried on in the bakery, after that I went to work in a steel mill. There was no money for playing football, not even proper expenses. My father would drive me 450 km from where we lived to Degerfors, for which the club gave him £5.’ Grip, unlike Eriksson, was a top player, an old-fashioned inside-right who was to play for more than a decade in the Swedish Premier League, and win three international caps. He played for Degerfors from 1953 until 1966, during which time he had trials with Aston Villa, then under the management of Joe Mercer. ‘I came over and played three games for the reserves, but nothing came of it,’ he told me. Instead, he transferred to AIK Stockholm for a couple of seasons before becoming player-manager of Karlskoga, then in Division Two. He takes up the story of his fateful conjunction with Eriksson as follows:

‘We were promoted to the First Division, and then one afternoon in 1970/71 Sven came and asked me if he could train with us. He was studying to be a PE teacher at Orebro, just as I had done. He wasn’t specializing in football, as some have said. He wanted to be a PE teacher. We had a good team at that time, very close to getting in the Premier League, and I thought he’d struggle to get a game, but eventually he did get in the side. His technique wasn’t very good, but he worked at it on his own. He was the right full-back, playing immediately behind me, so he had to learn to defend, because I couldn’t. He always reminds me: “You told us that when we lost possession everyone should drop back and defend. Everyone except you, that is. You never did it.”

‘I was five years at Karlskoga. In 1974/75 I quit playing and became manager of Orebro, in the Premier League. Sven stayed and played on for Karlskoga, but then he got badly injured and didn’t play for a year. From Orebro I went back to Degerfors. I went back to work in the steel factory there, in their rehabilitation department, and also to manage my old club, who were now in the Second Division. I knew about Sven’s ambition, so I asked him to join me. He would have been 28.’

The manager immediately had the awkward task of telling his new recruit that he had no future as a player, and that he should concentrate on coaching. ‘Tord telling me that I would be better off if I stopped playing was not very nice,’ Eriksson says. ‘For a long time I regretted not fulfilling my ambition to play in Italy, but I’m over that now.’

Grip takes up the story: ‘He became my assistant, and we worked together like that in 1975. Then I got an offer from the Swedish FA, to run the Under-16 team and be assistant to the Sweden manager, Georg Ericsson. We qualified for the 1978 World Cup, in Argentina. Anyway, in 1976 Sven took over at Degerfors. He was in charge for three years.’ Two decades passed before master and pupil were to be reunited.

Degerfors, two hours’ drive from Torsby, is a frost-bitten town of 10,000 inhabitants, with a local football club not unlike Charlton Athletic. Runners-up in the top division twice, most recently in 1963, they have led a yo-yo existence since, but have forged strong links with the community, and consequently enjoy more support than they might otherwise expect. The clubhouse is full of merchandise – fleeces, T-shirts, mugs, schnapps glasses, hats, scarves etc – but noticeably short on Eriksson memorabilia, although there is an England 2006 calendar in the corridor, a relic of the failed bid to stage the next World Cup.

Degerfors have punched above their weight in producing 23 players for the national team, all of whom have their pictures in a make-shift gallery in the equivalent of the Liverpool ‘Boot Room’, where the kit man, Karsten Kurkkio, holds court. Kurkkio, 56, has worked for the club for longer than he can remember, in a voluntary capacity before he was put in charge of the kit. His room, he says proudly, is used by the coaches when they draw up their training schedules over coffee. Dashing hither and thither, he points to the snapshots of distinguished former players on the walls, where Olof Mellberg, of Aston Villa, was the latest addition. Pride of place, however, went to the legendary Gunnar Nordahl, possibly Sweden’s most famous player of all time. Born in 1921, Gunnar was one of five brothers, all of whom played at top level. A goalscoring phenomenon, the best of the brood began his career with Degerfors, before moving on to Norrkoping, whom he shot to four successive championships, with 93 goals in 92 appearances. Gunnar Nordahl won a gold medal for football at the London Olympics, in 1948, forming with Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm the celebrated Gre-No-Li trio. All three played professionally in Italy, where they made a huge impact, Nordahl joining Milan, and scoring a record 210 goals, collecting Serie A titles in 1951 and 1955. After a brief spell with Roma, he returned home to coach Norrkoping. He died in 1995. ‘He was our best,’ Kurkkio said, reverentially. ‘Sven-Goran Eriksson was not a good player. Tord Grip, on the other hand … Now he was good. He ran and ran.’

Kurkkio remembered Eriksson best for the innovation which saw Degerfors use a sports psychologist for the first time. The engagement of Dr Willi Railo started a collaboration which endured for 25 years. The guided tour of his dark domain complete, the kit man passed me on to Degerfors’s latest manager who, with ice on the pitch, had taken his charges inside for midweek training in a hall that doubles as a basketball arena. Dave Mosson is the sort of gnarled Scot you stumble across coaching in remote outposts all over the world. Going into 2002, he was in his third stint at Degerfors, having initially replaced Eriksson in 1979. Originally from Glasgow, he was apprenticed to Nottingham Forest, under Johnny Carey. By way of residential qualification, he played for the England youth team, but realizing early that he might not be good enough to make a decent career out of playing the game, he attended Loughborough College as a PE student, and made the move to Sweden after his fiancée’s father, who was on the board at Karlstad FC, invited him over for a trial. ‘I did quite well, and I’ve been here ever since.’ He has coached five different clubs in the Swedish First Division.

Mosson first met Eriksson as a player. ‘I played for Karlstad and Sven for Karlskoga, the neighbouring town, so we came up against one another quite a few times. He was a very ordinary right-back. You would never have noticed him in a game. He never kicked his winger or overlapped much. He just did his job as best he could. I don’t think anybody in those days admired how he played football, but he was very passionate. The game has always been a passion for him.’

The expatriate Scot was later in charge of the coaching course which set Eriksson on the path to greater glory. Was the England coach-to-be a natural? ‘Yes, I’d say he was. Some are, some aren’t. He was not the dynamic sort. Some use a lot of vocals and gesticular [sic] action, and are generally dynamic in the way they work. He was never like that. He did things methodically, talking a lot. He was always a good communicator. When he talks now, of course, people are more inclined to listen.’

When Mosson took over from Eriksson at Degerfors they had just missed out on promotion from the First Division. ‘Under the Swedish system,’ he explained, ‘it wasn’t enough to win your division, you also had to get through a play-off system to get up. Under Sven, they were in the play-offs twice, and were promoted once. I took them up straight away.’ At this stage, it became apparent that Mosson was holding something back. There was an ambivalence behind the praise. When I mentioned this, there was a pregnant pause before he decided not to reveal all. ‘I won’t tell you what Sven was really like, because I don’t think it would do anybody any good. Let’s just say that he’s very good at maintaining a front.’ No amount of prompting and pressing would persuade him to elucidate. Steering a determined course away from the dangerous waters he had ventured into, he went on: ‘Sven has learned to keep his cool, to stay inside his shell. Swedes do that. They are very polite and reserved. They don’t like to be associated with any diversionary activity. He lived his life here no differently to anybody else. He was a family man fairly early, marrying a girl from Amal, which is between Karlstad and Gothenburg, and quickly having a couple of children [Johann and Lina]. When he came on to the coaching scene, there was never any scandal. He just got on with life.’

Mosson was the first of many to hint that Eriksson had always been something of a ladies’ man. As a coach, Eriksson had always been an anglophile. ‘Right from his early days, Sven was heavily influenced by the English style of play, zonal defence and 4–4–2,’ Mosson said. ‘When he did his final coaching course over here, he had to submit a written paper, which I read, and that’s what he did it on – his adaptation of the English game.’ Bobby Robson was something of a mentor in the late 1970s, Eriksson journeying to Portman Road to study the methods and pick the brains of the manager who was rivalling mighty Liverpool’s preeminence in England with unfashionable Ipswich. Eriksson recalls: ‘I went to Ipswich on a Friday and watched the team train. I asked Bobby Robson if I could put some questions to him after training, and we ended up sitting in his office for two or three hours, talking about football. Fantastic. He didn’t know me, and I was no one. He asked if I was coming to see the game the next day, and if I had a ticket. I said I was going to buy one. “Well,” he said, “do you want to sit on the bench with me?” Can you imagine? I was sitting next to him and the game was being shown live in Sweden. Beautiful. He is a very special man.’

Mosson’s predecessor as manager at Degerfors, Kenneth Norolling, has also known Eriksson for many years, and says: ‘Tord Grip and Svennis were the first coaches in Sweden to take ideas from England. That’s where they got the 4–4–2 system and the flat back four. They took ideas from Bob Houghton [the Englishman who took Malmo to the 1979 European Cup Final] and Roy Hodgson, at Halmstad. There was a lot of discussion in Sweden around that time about how we should play, who we should follow. Tord was the first Swede to copy the English system, followed by Sven.’

Hodgson told me: ‘From 1974 to 1980, of the six Swedish championships available, Bob won three and I won two. Then Bob and I left Sweden [to go to Bristol City together] and there was a period of Gothenburg domination until 1985, when Malmo took over. All credit to Tord and Sven who were the first to hitch on to our bandwagon. To be honest, there’s nothing really new in the game. All of us, somewhere along the line, have looked at somebody who has done something and been successful and thought: “Yeah, that’s me, that’s what I want to do as well.” For me and Bob it was Don Howe and Dave Sexton. With Sven, it was probably more Bob than me, because he was the first.

‘Fair play to them, Tord and Sven had to fight a lot of battles because Bob and I weren’t popular in Sweden in those days. Not only had we anglicized their game, but we had locked out the Swedish coaches when it came to winning things, and they didn’t like it. We engendered great loyalty among our players, and it became a bit of a war between the Halmstad–Malmo faction and the rest of Sweden, including the football federation and the media. Tord and Sven aligned themselves with us, the group that was under fire, which can’t have been easy. But then, when they did it our way and gained their own success, our methods became popular everywhere because it was no longer the English who were doing it. In 1979, though, there were only three clubs playing with a back four, zonally, and pressurizing: Bob’s, mine and Sven’s. All the others were still playing the German way, man for man.

‘The national coach was a guy called Lars Arnesen, and he was one of the bastions of anti-British feeling. “This is not the right way to play,” he said. “It stifles initiative and turns players into robots.” All the old claptrap. But the national team had a strong contingent of Sven’s Gothenburg players, and they went to Arnesen and told him: “We’ve had enough of this system of yours. The way Gothenburg play is the way we should, too.”

‘I got to know Sven and Tord in 1979 and 1980, and felt an affinity with them because they’d had the courage to go with us. Other Swedish coaches were distancing themselves from us, but Sven and Tord said: “No, this is good football, this is the way football should be played. It’s how we’re going to play.” Tord took over the national Under–21 team, with Sven as his assistant, and they played the English way while the seniors were still sticking to their guns. I know they came under all sorts of pressure, but they stood up to the criticism, and I think the experience probably did Sven good. Taking on a fight like that prepared him for what happened later at Benfica, and in Italy.’

Grip told me: ‘When Sven started to work for me at Degerfors, I was the one with the experience in coaching and management. I was ahead of him in that respect, so I suppose I helped him to learn how to organize a team. At that time, a lot of coaches in Sweden were learning new ways. It was a period when we were starting to update our methods. It was an exciting time – a time of constant improvement. We took a lot, including our playing style, from England. The physical requirements we had already. There is not much else to think about in Sweden during the winter! Our strength was always our strength. It was when the other countries caught up with our fitness levels that we had to improve our organization. In Sweden, we’ve never been great technically, so we had to organize our teams cleverly and work hard to compensate. We did that.’

After Grip had left, Eriksson took Degerfors to the Third Division championship in his first season in management. The play-off system, involving four regional winners, was known as the Kval. At the end of 1976, Degerfors lost all three games, and were not promoted. In 1977, they did marginally better when, having won the league again, they took only two points from three matches in the Kval. In 1978 they made it third time lucky, winning the Third Division, by five points from Karlskoga, and all three games in the play-offs to go up to Division Two (North).

Eriksson attributed the decisive improvement to the work of Willi Railo. He says: ‘My team always played well in the Kval, but when it came to the play-off, we’d mess up. At my invitation, Willi came and worked with us for one whole day. He made a cassette for individual players to listen to so that they could practise mental training on their own. We even stopped the bus on the way to the match so that they could use their cassettes to prepare mentally. We won the play-off and went up.’

People were starting to take notice.

CHAPTER EIGHT INTO THE BIG TIME

Gothenburg is where Swedish football began, and is the city that is most passionate about the game. The oldest club in existence today, Orgryte IS, formed there in 1887, as did the first governing body, in 1895. IFK Gothenburg, founder members of the league in 1904, have long been Sweden’s most successful and best-supported club, having won more championships than any other. When Sven-Goran Eriksson, of little Degerfors, heard they wanted to speak to him in 1979, he assumed that if there was a job on offer it would be with the youth team. He was wrong. At 34, Svennis had arrived in the big time.

Sven Carlsson was the finance director on the Gothenburg board at the time of the appointment. How had they identified Eriksson in the obscurity of the lower divisions? ‘It was well known that we were looking for a trainer, and Sven-Goran was recommended to us as one who was particularly good at youth development,’ Carlsson told me. ‘So the club president, Bertil Westblad, called him and he came to speak to us. We liked him straight away, and he agreed to take the job.’

It could have been one of the shortest appointments on record. After losing each of his first three games in charge, Eriksson called a team meeting and told the players, who had scorned the arrival of this ‘nobody’ from the backwoods, that if they wanted him out, he would go. It was a winning gamble, a turning point. He had confronted them and they admired him for it. So what if he was not the big name they had expected? They liked his style. One of the club’s best players was Glenn Hysen, the cultured central defender who was to win 70 international caps in a distinguished career which took him to PSV Eindhoven, Fiorentina (with Eriksson again) and Liverpool. Now retired, and back in Gothenburg, where he works as a commentator with Swedish television, Hysen says: ‘When Sven was appointed, he was a complete nobody. He walked into the dressing room, and all the players thought: “Who are you?” Here was this really shy man, who had been the manager of a little team called Degerfors, and now he was suddenly in charge of the biggest club in the country. We had never heard of him, as a player or as a coach, and it took us a while to get used to him and respect him. We made a terrible start, losing our first three matches that season, which was almost unheard of at Gothenburg.

‘In the third game we lost to a side newly promoted, and afterwards Sven asked the whole team if we wanted him to quit. He said he would walk away if we wanted him to. We all agreed that it was too early for him to resign, and decided we would give it time to see how things worked out. The rest is history. Sven won the UEFA Cup with Gothenburg, who became the first Swedish club ever to win a European trophy.

‘Now I hear he’s incredibly popular in England, but if that Gothenburg side had told him to go, his career might never have recovered. I don’t think he would have ended up working in a Volvo factory, but nor do I think he would have gone on to become a top manager if he had walked out of his first big job after three games.’

In 1978, Gothenburg finished third in the league, a distant seven points behind the champions, Osters Vaxjo. In Eriksson’s first season they were runners-up, just one point behind Halmstad, and they won the Swedish Cup, thrashing Atvidabergs 6–1 in the final. The championship had its most dramatic denouement for many years, boiling down to a last-day finish between Gothenburg and Halmstad, who were coached by Roy Hodgson. Halmstad were at home to relegation-bound AIK Stockholm, Gothenburg away to mid-table Hammarby. At halftime in the two games, when it was 0–0 in Halmstad and Gothenburg were leading (they won 3–2), it looked like Eriksson’s title, but Hodgson’s team scored twice in the second half to clinch it.

Hodgson remembers it well: ‘I’d been at Halmstad since 1976. In 1979 we led the league from start to finish, but we were lucky when we played Gothenburg at home in the autumn. We were top but they were having a good spell, winning games while we were drawing, and therefore closing the gap. When we played them, we were very fortunate. We won because the referee disallowed them what was a perfectly good goal. Our defence had pushed out, one of their strikers stayed in, and when the ball came to him he looked 20 yards offside. But what the referee and linesman hadn’t picked up was that it was a backpass from one of our defenders. That goal, had it stood, would have put them 1–0 up, and made it a very different game. Instead, we went on to win 2–1. We continued on our way, staying top but faltering a bit because we weren’t winning every game and Gothenburg were, and we came to the last day with only one point in it. We were at home to AIK, who were a poor team, and all we had to do was get the same result as Gothenburg. But if we drew and they won, they’d take the title on goal difference. They had a difficult away game, against Hammarby, in Stockholm.

‘We had a full house. The capacity at Halmstad was only 16,000, but fans were packed into our little stadium, waiting to celebrate a championship which we’d been on course for, really, from the first day. In 26 rounds of matches, we’d been top for 23. It was a big day for a small club – Halmstad had a population of barely 40,000 – and the players were nervous. We played very poorly in the first half, and should have been 2–0 down at half-time, but they missed a couple of gilt-edged chances, and we came in at 0–0. In the second half we scored a wonder goal after five minutes, and that settled the players down. We went on to win quite comfortably, 2–0, but I shall never forget that first half, when they could have put us away. Gothenburg had won as well, so we were champions by a single point.’

Runners-up and cup winners, it had hardly been a bad season for IFK, but not everybody was happy. Frank Sjoman, a respected journalist, wrote: ‘Eriksson has been at variance with the ideals of the fans since, like most managers, he wants results before anything. Before long, he had introduced more tactical awareness, workrate and had tightened the old cavalier style. The result has been that while Gothenburg are harder to beat, they are also harder to watch, and though they were challenging for the title, the average gate dropped by 3,000 to 13,320 – still the best in the country.’

Eriksson was changing from the traditional sweeper-controlled, man-for-man marking defence, to what became known as ‘Swenglish’ 4–4–2. He had taken the ferry across the North Sea to study Bobby Robson’s methods at Ipswich, and also journeyed to Liverpool’s Melwood training ground to learn from Bob Paisley, the most successful English manager of all time. Bobby Ferguson, then Robson’s assistant, said: ‘He [Eriksson] would stand by the side of the training pitch and note down everything. He never took his eyes off Bobby, and how he was organizing things.’

Glenn Schiller, a defensive midfielder who had come up through the youth team, recalled that it was almost a case of playing by numbers at first. ‘I remember it as if it was yesterday,’ he told me. ‘We worked all the time on pressing the opposition and running in support of the man on the ball. Svennis would place us like chess pieces on the training pitch. “You stand here, you go there,” and so on. It was hard work. The biggest problem was fitting all the pieces together and getting them all to move in harmony. The defensive part was the key to it all. When we were attacking, there was a fair amount of freedom to express ourselves, but we had to defend from strict, zonal starting positions.’

The new ‘Swenglish’ was deeply unpopular at first, but in fairness, the Gothenburg team that won the cup (needing extra-time and penalties to see off Orebro on the way) scored 29 goals in seven games in the process, which suggests ‘the old cavalier style’ was not entirely a thing of the past. Apart from the 20-year-old Hysen, notable members of that side included Torbjorn Nilsson, the most accomplished player in Sweden, who could scheme as well as score, 19-year-old Glenn Stromberg, an attacking midfielder who played in 24 of the 26 matches in his breakthrough season, and Olle Nordin, the team captain and engine room artificer.

Eriksson says of that first season: ‘During my first year, IFK were regarded as a rebellious bunch, and we suffered disciplinary problems, with too many bookings and sendings-off. But we overcame that by hard work, and in the end our behaviour was impeccable, on and off the field. We travelled a lot in the cup, and we used the trips to build a winning culture. Nobody moaned about waiting times, depressing airports or grotty hotel rooms.’

A rebellious bunch? Schiller, now a football agent, wouldn’t go quite that far, but admits: ‘We came to be looked upon like rock stars, and after games we would all go out for a few drinks. I have to say we did have fun on all our trips.’ The downside of this good-time culture saw Schiller spend a month in prison for a drink-driving conviction, when he took his car in search of further refreshment after a party at home. ‘It was a long time ago, and I learned my lesson,’ he says. Eriksson said his piece at the time, but after that was steadfastly supportive, and welcomed the prodigal son back to the club immediately upon his release. ‘He is a very understanding man, and it was not a problem after that,’ Schiller told me.

That first season, Stromberg had been the major find. He told me: ‘Because I was only young, and already 6 ft 5 in, I’d had a lot of back trouble the previous season, when I was 18. But when Sven took over, he promoted me straight away to the first-team squad, and after a couple of months he put me in the team, in the centre of midfield. I couldn’t believe it, because I’d had so many problems with injuries and it took a lot of courage for him to do it. Straight away he left out some of the older players and gave the younger ones their chance.’

Of Eriksson’s early difficulties, Stromberg says: ‘When he arrived, he was unknown, which was one problem. Another was that he made us play in the English style – long balls and pressing the opposition all over the pitch. In Sweden, the national team and the bigger clubs were used to the short passing game, the continental way, and for a long time there was much criticism of Sven’s way of playing.’

The following season, Gothenburg dropped back to third in the league again, behind Osters Vaxjo and Malmo, while their performance in the European Cup Winners’ Cup was no better than ordinary. After making hard work of beating Ireland’s Waterford and Panionios of Greece, both on a 2–1 aggregate, they fell apart against Terry Neill’s Arsenal, and were trounced 5–1 at Highbury in the first leg, in March 1980. The North Bank was shocked into silence when Torbjorn Nilsson opened the scoring on the half-hour, but Alan Sunderland equalized within a minute, and after 35 minutes Arsenal were ahead, through David Price. Sunderland again, Liam Brady and Willie Young were also on target to make it a deflating night for Eriksson and his team. The return, in Sweden, was goalless, and remarkable only for a nasty scare for Neill and his players when their plane’s landing gear malfunctioned, causing their first approach to Gothenburg airport to be aborted.

It had not been a good season, and criticism was mounting. ‘Sven’s second season was more of a problem than his first,’ Stromberg says. ‘There was a big debate about our long-ball game, but we kept playing our way, and the national team stuck to theirs. Sven is very hard-headed, he will always keep to his way. By this time, the team and the whole club were behind him, but there was a lot of criticism from the fans and the press. Eventually, of course, everybody in Sweden went over to the English style. It all started just before Sven. Bob Houghton was at Malmo and Roy Hodgson at Halmstad, and they first brought that way of playing to Sweden. It became Sven’s way, too, and it brought good results for Gothenburg for the next ten years.’

For 1981, Eriksson strengthened his backroom staff with the recruitment of a new assistant, Gunder Bengtsson, and the team by signing three internationals. Sweden’s goalkeeper, Thomas Wernersson, joined from Atvidaberg, and Stig Fredriksson and Hakan Sandberg, defender and striker respectively, arrived from Vasteras and Orebro. Finance director Carlsson says: ‘When Sven joined us we already had quite a few good young players, so it was quite a good situation for a new trainer, but after a year or so he came to us with his proposals for improving the team. We backed his judgement as far as we could, depending on the finance involved. We were very impressed with the way he handled himself there. He would say to us: “This is a player I want to sign, but if we haven’t got enough money, I’ll accept that.”’

The consequent improvement was not quite enough, Gothenburg finishing second in the league again, four points behind Osters Vaxjo, and so far, Eriksson had done not much more than satisfy minimum expectations. Managerial take-off came with the annus mirablis that was 1982. That year, Gothenburg did the league and cup double and triumphed against all odds in the UEFA Cup, becoming the first Swedish club to win a European trophy. By this stage the erstwhile ‘Mr Who?’ had full and enthusiastic backing in the dressing room. Hysen says: ‘Even for a Swede, Sven was amazingly calm. In all the time I played for him, he never once raised his voice, and I can’t say that about any other manager. I used to imagine that he had a secret darkened room somewhere, and that he would go there on his own and shout, scream and kick the walls and trash the place. I know Swedes are supposed to be relaxed about things, but I thought it was impossible for a man to be that calm all the time.

‘On the other hand, Sven is also the best motivator I ever played for, and that is what you’d call a typical English quality. He treated everyone like adults, and they respected him for his honesty. If a player was dropped, Sven would take him to one side and explain his reasons. That approach made you even more determined to do well for the guy. He was an expert at man-management.’

Bengtsson, two years Eriksson’s senior, was manager of Molde, in Norway, when we spoke in April 2002. He told me: ‘We’ve known each other since 1975, when some mutual friends introduced us. I was player-coach at Torsby, Sven’s home town, before he took me to Gothenburg as his number two. We had a few problems at first, with results not going so well, but we had good players and eventually it all came right. Gothenburg had always been a team who played attacking football, but until Sven took charge they weren’t well organized, and so they hadn’t been winning anything. Implementing any new style takes time, all the more so when it is as unpopular as Sven’s was at first, but when results picked up, everything we were doing was accepted.’

Stromberg by now had developed into a key player, for club and country; indeed Gothenburg as a unit had matured nicely and were approaching their collective peak. They were still part-timers (Hysen was an electrician, Tord Holmgren a plumber), and were patronized by the European elite, but everybody was about to sit up and take notice. The first round of the UEFA Cup brought a routine demolition of Finland’s Haka Valkeakosi, and there was no hint of the glory nights to come when Sturm Graz, of Austria, pushed the Swedes all the way before going out on an aggregate of 5–4. By the third round, however, Gothenburg were into their stride, beating Dinamo Bucharest at home (3–1) and away (1–0), and when they eliminated Valencia in the quarter-final it was clear that they were a force to be reckoned with. Stromberg remembers the trip to Spain with much amusement. He says: ‘You have to remember that the club didn’t really have the money to compete at this level. When we played Valencia away, we didn’t have any directors with us. The club had severe financial problems at the time, and the four directors were all standing down. For nearly a month we had no administration, and when we went to Valencia there were no directors, just the Swedish journalists with us.

‘There was a formal dinner the night before the match, and we had nobody to sit at the table with the Valencia directors, so we took the club doctor, a radio reporter and the kit man. It was unbelievable, to see these guys eating with the people who owned one of the biggest clubs in Spain.’

The financial situation had improved by the time the semi-final brought Gothenburg up against Germany’s Kaiserslautern, who had just inflicted the heaviest-ever European defeat (5–0) on Real Madrid, and were therefore hot favourites. ‘We were getting 50,000 gates for the European games, and Valencia had eased the cashflow problem,’ Stromberg explained. ‘Everything really started to come together that month. We were saved, as a big club, by our European run.’ Again Eriksson’s game plan worked to perfection. The draw and away goal he wanted from the first leg in Germany shifted the odds in Gothenburg’s favour for the return, and a 2–1 win at home completed the upset. ‘At that time,’ Stromberg says, ‘I think we could have taken on almost any team in the world. We were very confident, we had a lot of good players and we had a method we all believed in. Everybody believed in the things we were doing, the way we were playing. In Europe, the teams we played were having a lot of trouble with Sven’s pressing game. They were used to being allowed to build up their passing from their own half, without pressure, but we started challenging for the ball very high up the field, and worked very hard at it. It also helped, of course, that there was a lot of quality in that side.’

The final was against another Bundesliga team, Hamburg, who were stronger than Kaiserslautern, and confident of winning with something to spare. Only once before had a Swedish club reached a European final, and the poverty of Malmo’s performance in losing 1–0 to Nottingham Forest in the 1979 European Cup Final was not about to strike fear into Franz Beckenbauer and company. Bengtsson says: ‘To be honest, getting to the final was a surprise, even for us, but there was a good feeling, a good spirit about that team – the best I’ve ever known. We also had an advantage. When a team like Gothenburg are coming up from nowhere, nobody really believes they are going to go all the way, and obviously it helps if you have a good team and nobody really takes you seriously. In the quarter-finals, nobody had said much or thought much about us, so Valencia expected to win. You could tell that. It was the same in the semi-finals, and particularly in the final. Nobody thought we could play as well as we did. We took them by surprise.’

Gothenburg were ten games unbeaten coming into the final, with their twin strikers, Torbjorn Nilsson and Dan Corneliusson, in prolific form. The first leg, in the Ullevi stadium, left the tie intriguingly balanced. Tord Holmgren’s only goal of the match, in the 87th minute, gave the underdogs a lead to defend, but Hamburg thought they could easily overcome such a slender deficit at home. ‘Nobody gave us a chance over there,’ Eriksson recalled. ‘Hamburg had flags printed with “Hamburg SV winners of the UEFA Cup ‘82” all over them. You could buy them before the game. I still have one at home.’

His own players certainly regarded themselves as rank outsiders, albeit in a two-horse race. Stromberg says: ‘An hour and a half before the game, Sven told us: “You know, we have a good chance here.” We all looked at him thinking “Yeah, yeah. A good chance. How?” He said: “We’re a team who score a lot of goals, and we’re always likely to get one. Then, if we get one, they’ll have to get three.” Sven reminded us that nobody had scored three times against us all season, and that got us thinking. We turned to one another with looks that said: “Yeah, he’s right, we do have a chance here.”’

Teutonic speculation focused on whether Beckenbauer would play and pick up the one trophy that had eluded him. Two weeks away from retirement ‘The Kaiser’ had only just recovered from a bruised kidney, and had been among the substitutes a few days earlier, for the 5–0 drubbing of Werder Bremen. Ernst Happel, Hamburg’s Austrian coach, said: ‘There is a possibility Beckenbauer will play, but there is often a hitch between theory and practice.’ Too true; the great man never appeared. Nevertheless, Happel still had three formidable German internationals – Manni Kaltz, Felix Magath and Horst Hrubesch – at his command. Victory would be a formality.

The trip had inauspicious beginnings for Glenn Schiller. ‘I’d forgotten my boots, left them in Sweden,’ he says. ‘Sven wasn’t pleased. He said: “The only thing you have to bring with you is your boots, and you can’t be relied on to do that.” He made me buy new ones.’ Keen to get out of the manager’s way, Schiller was sitting in the toilet as the final preparations were made. ‘I was starting on the bench, so I was in no great hurry, and I was sat in there reading the match programme, with all the adverts for Hamburg cup-winning souvenirs. You could see that they had taken too much for granted, and definitely underestimated us.

‘When I came out, I could hear the crowd yelling and the dressing room was empty. I was locked in. I was banging on the door, trying to get out, but nobody came, and in the end I had to climb over the door. I was probably in there on my own for ten minutes. Just as I got out, Glenn Hysen was injured, and Svennis was asking everybody on the bench “Where’s Schiller?” They looked around and told him: “He’s coming.” I was running around the track and was sent straight on, so you could say I did my warm-up in the toilet! I didn’t get to sit on the bench, I sat on the throne instead.’

Hamburg started urgently, seeking the early goal which would square the tie and give them the initiative but, against all expectations, it was Gothenburg who played the better football. The Germans were too hurried, making mistakes which were ruthlessly exploited. After 26 minutes Eriksson’s underdogs were ahead, Tommy Holmgren, the younger brother of Tord, breaking down the left and crossing for Corneliusson to score with a powerful shot. Hamburg’s morale nosedived, Gothenburg’s soared, and the issue was put beyond doubt after 61 minutes, when Nilsson, who was outstanding throughout, outran Magath over 40 yards before making it 2–0 on the night. The Swedes were now 3–0 up on aggregate with away goals in their favour. Hamburg needed four goals in half an hour, but were a broken team, and disappointed fans were streaming out of the Volksparkstadion when Nilsson was fouled inside the penalty area and Stig Fredriksson scored from the spot.

Stromberg says: ‘It was one of those nights when everything is just perfect. Torbjorn Nilsson, our centre-forward, was probably the best striker in Europe for two or three years around that time, but I don’t think it was down to him, or the midfield, or the defence. Everything, everybody, was just perfect. I remember Hrubesch turning to me during the game and saying: “You know, we could play you ten times and never win.” On our form that night, he was right. We were that good. Every player knew what to do, where to be at any given time. Throughout the 90 minutes, I don’t remember any player being caught out of position once. Sven had prepared us that well.’

After 4,000 exultant Swedes had acclaimed their heroes on a lap of honour, Eriksson said: ‘I’m the happiest man alive. I thought we might sneak it 1–0, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we could come to Hamburg and score three.’ Happel offered no excuses. The first goal had been crucial, fracturing his team’s morale, he said. ‘In the end, they could have scored four or five.’

For winning the UEFA Cup, the Gothenburg players received £50,000 a man on top of their basic salaries of £1,500 per month. Schiller immediately put a big hole in his bonus by buying a Porsche. ‘Glenn Stromberg bought one too,’ he said, chuckling at the memory. ‘We were the two single guys in the team, you understand.’

Eriksson was also in the outside lane. Suddenly all Europe had heard of ‘Sven Who?’, and Gothenburg couldn’t hope to keep him. But he had built a young team good enough to dominate Swedish football for the next five years under Bengtsson, who succeeded him, and to win the UEFA again in 1987.

CHAPTER NINE LISBON CALLING

At the end of the 1981/82 season, Benfica were looking for a coach to replace the veteran Hungarian, Lajos Baroti. The world-renowned Lisbon ‘Eagles’ had done the league and cup double in his first season, 1980/81, but second place in 1982 was not good enough for a club with stratospheric standards (winners of 30 championships since 1935, they had never finished below fourth), and he had to go. Gothenburg may be Sweden’s biggest club, but Benfica operate on a higher plane entirely. They have always been number one in Portugal, and were, for a time, pre-eminent in Europe, making five appearances in the European Cup Final in the 1960s. When they want a coach, they usually get their man, and so it was in 1982 when, impressed by Eriksson’s triumph with Gothenburg in the UEFA Cup, they sent a private jet to fetch him and offer him the job.

His first task was to change the players’ mentality. Eriksson explained: ‘This was a team who played well at home, with a lot of courage, but as soon as they had an away game it was a different story. It seemed that in the Portuguese league they had learned that by winning at home and drawing away they could win the championship. Their away matches in Europe were particularly disappointing. They didn’t want to run and challenge the opposition and kept falling back. In the first round of the UEFA Cup, against Real Betis, I lost my temper. We were losing 1–0, but the players were happy. Losing 1–0 there was OK because we would beat them at home. At half-time I was furious. “What are you trying to do?” I said. “Are you here to play football or not?” One of the players spoke up. “Sure,” he said, “this is how we play away from home.” So I said: “The pitch is no bigger here than it is at home, the grass is the same. If you can play football at home, you must be able to play football here.”

‘We turned the match around and won 2–1. I was able to change their attitude to away matches. They played with spirit away, too. The team’s self-confidence improved dramatically. From then on, Benfica always played attacking football, always played to win, home or away.’ Even by their standards, Eriksson’s start was extraordinary. After his first 11 league matches, he had a 100 per cent record, a maximum 22 points banked and just four goals conceded. Going into 1983, Benfica were still unbeaten and a new club record had been set – played 28, won 26, drawn 2, lost none, goals for 85, goals against 15 – when they eventually slipped up for the first time, losing 1–0 away to their arch rivals, Sporting Lisbon. Even that took a dodgy penalty, and Eriksson was characteristically sanguine in defeat. ‘The run had to end some time,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It’s no great catastrophe.’ Indeed it wasn’t, as Benfica had a comfortable four-point lead over Porto, who had the league’s leading scorer, Fernlando Gomes, in harness with Micky Walsh, formerly of Blackpool, Everton and Queens Park Rangers in attack. Eriksson’s strikers were Nene, an experienced Portuguese international, and Zoran Filipovic, a big, bustling Yugoslav. The other key elements in the team were Manuel Bento, Portugal’s veteran goalkeeper, Humberto Coelho, the captain and accomplished right-back who was to become the country’s most capped player, Diamantino, a goalscoring winger and the only ever-present that season, and Fernando Chalana, an attacking midfielder who six years earlier, at 17, had become Portugal’s youngest-ever international.

The fans, dubious at first about the appointment of a 34-year-old Swede, were eating out of Eriksson’s hand after his first 16 league and cup games had all been won. From ‘Who is this young upstart?’ it had become ‘So what if he is the same age as his goalkeeper?’ The first sign of a problem came towards the end of February 1983, when a club versus country row blew up before Portugal’s match at home to West Germany. The national team had played another friendly, against France, a week earlier, and Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, both of whom were involved in European club quarter-finals, strongly objected to their best players being asked to play six games in 17 days. Negotiations failed to resolve the situation, and on the eve of the international, the clubs declared that enough was enough, and withdrew their players’ labour. Of a total of 36 named by the manager, Otto Gloria, in his senior and Under-21 squads, 11 pulled out, including six from Benfica. Gloria, a Brazilian, who had managed the Portuguese team at the 1966 World Cup and Benfica when they lost the European Cup Final to Manchester United in 1968, now resigned, refusing to nominate replacements. ‘How can I work in this madhouse?’ he asked, rhetorically. But he did. The old boy was persuaded to change his mind, and sod’s law dictated that Portugal, who had been beaten 3–0 by France when at full strength, defeated the mighty West Germans 1–0 a week later with their reserves.

Midway through that first season, Eriksson made his first signing, going back to his old club, Gothenburg, for Glenn Stromberg, now 23. Stromberg told me: ‘I finished the season in Sweden and then joined Benfica. What Sven was doing took a lot of courage – from both of us. When I got there, he said: “Now Glenn, you’re going to take the place of the fans’ favourite player, Joao Alves.” He was a clever wide midfielder, a real crowd-pleaser, whose trademark was always to wear black gloves. There were a lot of people who didn’t believe their eyes the first time I played and Alves didn’t. At first, it was very difficult there. When Sven spoke to me in Swedish, all the other players would look at us and wonder what we were up to. So after a short time he said: “Let’s just try to talk only in Portuguese, even though we don’t know very much, first so that everybody can see that we’re one of them and second, so they’ll know what we’re talking about.” I think it was more of a mixing-in exercise than anything. He would have played me, whatever anybody thought. Sven was never one to be swayed by anyone else’s opinion. He thought me playing was the best way for Benfica to get results, and we had great results for the next 18 months. Alves still played for Portugal while I was playing in his place for Benfica.’

Stromberg had to wait what seemed like an eternity before joining the action. ‘I couldn’t play for a month or so when I first arrived’, he explained. ‘The clubs in Portugal were going to be allowed to play two foreign players at the same time, instead of just one, but the rule wasn’t changed immediately, as everybody had expected. They continued to permit only one, and there was a Yugoslav striker at Benfica, Filipovic, who was scoring a lot of goals and couldn’t be dropped because he was the only forward we had who was West European in style. He was tall, a very good header of the ball, and because of his tactics, Eriksson needed a guy like that up front. It was a frustrating time for me. In all, I was there for three months without playing. Then the rule change went through, we could play with two foreigners, and I played for the last three months of the season.’

Eriksson was tantalizingly close to winning the UEFA Cup with different clubs in successive years, Benfica losing their first European final since 1968 by the narrowest of margins. The competition was strong, with four English teams – Arsenal, Manchester United, Ipswich and Southampton – all going out in the first round, but Eriksson’s canny, cat-and-mouse tactics brought them past Real Betis, Lokeren and FC Zurich before they came up against Roma in the quarter-finals. The Italians, top of Serie A, and boasting international superstars in Falcao and Bruno Conti, had been good enough to put out Bobby Robson’s Ipswich, and were clear favourites. Benfica, however, won 2–1 in Rome, Filipovic scoring both their goals, then made it 3–2 on aggregate in the Stadium of Light, with Filipovic again on target. Falcao’s 86th minute consolation strike at least gave Roma the face-saver of an away draw. Benfica were through to the last four, where they needed the away-goals rule to overcome Romania’s first-ever European semi-finalists, Universitatea Craiova.

Eriksson approached the final, against Anderlecht, undefeated in 22 UEFA Cup matches, but that record went in the first leg against the Belgians, in Brussels on 5 May 1983. In their semi-final victory over Bohemians of Prague, two of Anderlecht’s goals were scored by Edwin Vandenbergh, their centre-forward, who was one of five Belgian World Cup players in a team coached by one-time record cap holder Paul Van Himst. Anderlecht’s strength was in midfield, where in Ludo Coeck, Frankie Vercauteren and Juan Lozano they had a unit that was the envy of most top clubs in Europe, but they were also well served up front, by Vandenbergh and Kenneth Brylle, the latter an energetic, incisive Dane.

For the first leg of the final, Benfica were well below strength. Nene was not fit enough to start, and had to be content with a place on the bench, Stromberg was suspended and Alves absent injured. The only goal in the first leg was an action replay of Anderlecht’s winner in the semi-final, Coeck turning cleverly to beat two defenders in the corner and finding Vercauteren, whose left-footed cross was buried by Brylle’s well-directed header. Any hope Benfica had of restoring the balance disappeared after 75 minutes, when midfielder Jose Luis Silva was sent off, for hacking down Brylle while the ball was out of play. Both managers professed themselves satisfied with the outcome. Van Himst said: ‘I’m not disappointed in the least with 1–0. Benfica are very awkward to play against. They work carefully and methodically to break up their opponents’ rhythm.’ Eriksson thought the final was nicely balanced. ‘We’re far from out of it,’ he said. ‘Before the game, I told people that a narrow defeat wouldn’t be a problem, and I haven’t changed my mind. Anderlecht are a good team, but so are we, and it’s still 50–50.’

For the decisive second leg, two weeks later, Nene and Stromberg were back, but now Filipovic was injured, and only on the bench. With just the one goal in it, there was everything to play for, and the match drew a crowd of 80,000 to the Estadio da Luz. Benfica were marginal favourites, but had an early scare when the Dutch referee, Charles Corver, disallowed a Vandenbergh ‘goal’ for offside. Humberto Coelho, taking every opportunity to venture upfield, volleyed a Diamantino cross into the side netting, and Benfica’s positive approach paid off in the 36th minute, when Chalana’s cross from the left was diverted to Han Sheu, who drove the ball high into the net. Overall equality had been restored – but not for long. Benfica relaxed, fatally, and three minutes later Anderlecht broke out of defence and a cross from Vercauteren was headed past Bento by Lozano, a Spanish-born midfielder who was seeking Belgian nationality. Premature celebration gave way to hushed foreboding in the packed stadium. Benfica were left needing to score twice to lift the trophy, and now Anderlecht’s decision to go in with an extra defender, Hugo Broos, and use Luka Peruzovic as a sweeper, paid dividends. Stromberg’s direct running from midfield, which had been a significant feature in the first half, was to no avail as his front men became enmeshed in the Belgians’ defensive web. Nene had a header saved from Carlos Manuel’s cross, and the introduction of the half-fit Filipovic was to no avail. He did manage to get the ball in the net, but from an offside position, and after successive European Cup wins in 1961 and 1962, Benfica had now lost their last four European finals.

At least domestic compensation was at hand. They won the league, by four points from Porto, and completed the double by beating the same opposition 1–0 in the Portuguese Cup Final. Two trophies and a European final in his first season – even directors who prided themselves in being the hardest of task masters were suitably impressed.

There was no runaway start to the 1983/84 season. Eriksson sold Alves, to Boavista, and signed Antonio Oliveira, a centre-half from Maritimo, to fill in for Humberto Coelho, who would need lengthy convalescence after a serious knee injury. This time Porto, spearheaded by the endlessly prolific Fernando Gomes, who had won the Golden Boot as the top scorer in Europe the previous season, with 36 goals, matched Benfica stride for stride. After their first seven league games, just two points covered the top three, with Benfica on 13, Porto 12 and Sporting Lisbon 11. After 13 matches, Sporting had dropped off the pace, but although Benfica had won 12 and drawn the other, Porto were still hanging in there, only two points behind. There would be no clean sweep of the honours board this time. Benfica were knocked out of the Portuguese Cup by Sporting and lost to Porto in the Super Cup.

Eriksson and his team had their eyes on a bigger prize – the European Cup. In the first two rounds, they made short work of Northern Ireland’s Linfield and Olympiakos of Greece. Then, on the eve of the quarter-final draw, Eriksson was asked who he would like to get, and who he wanted to avoid. ‘Ideally, I’d like Rapid Vienna,’ he said, ‘but I’d settle for anyone apart from Liverpool.’ Almost inevitably after that, Benfica drew Liverpool. ‘The worst possible opposition we could have got,’ was Eriksson’s reaction. ‘I rate them the best team in Europe, as they have been for the past decade. But we have to play them, there’s no escape, so play them we will, and we aren’t going to be afraid of their reputation or their ability. If we play well, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t beat anyone, even Liverpool. Other teams have done so. They lost last season to a Polish team, Widzew Lodz, and I know we are better than Lodz.’

Talking up the opposition was probably a mistake. The last thing the Benfica players needed was to be reminded of Liverpool’s strength. Stromberg explained: ‘It was a very difficult draw – all the more so because the Portuguese players had so much respect for English teams. They would rather have played Real Madrid or Barcelona – any of the south European sides – than a team from England or Germany. They were afraid of their physical football. Against Spanish opposition, the Portuguese always thought they could win, but not against the English or the Germans. That was a big problem in their heads.’

Nevertheless, Eriksson’s well-organized team defended assiduously at Anfield, where it was 0–0 at half-time, with Liverpool labouring to break them down. It took a substitution to do it, Joe Fagan replacing Craig Johnston with Kenny Dalglish, who had been out for eight weeks, and had played only two reserve games since fracturing a cheekbone. The class of ‘King Kenny’ was the vital difference in the second half, when Ian Rush headed home the only goal of the game from an Alan Kennedy cross. Fagan said: ‘It was a calculated risk playing Kenny at all, but it paid off. He gave us a little more skill and turned the game our way.’ Eriksson said: ‘Dalglish was brilliant. He is the same player, even after being away for two months. The away goal in Europe is very important, and I am disappointed we did not get one. It will not be easy for us in Lisbon now. Many teams play better at home than away, but not Liverpool.’

Prophetic stuff. Between the two legs, Liverpool signed John Wark from Ipswich, and the new arrival brought the best out of his rivals for a place, notably Ronnie Whelan and Craig Johnston. At the second time of asking, Liverpool were magnificent, although they were helped on their way by a maladroit piece of goalkeeping by Bento who, with nine minutes gone, allowed a header from Whelan to slip through his hands and then his legs. ‘We’d played well at Anfield, and really thought we had a chance at home,’ Stromberg said. ‘But then our goalkeeper made that bad mistake early on which meant we had to score three, and that was too much for us.’

After 34 minutes Liverpool made it 3–0 on aggregate, putting the tie well beyond Benfica’s recovery, when Dalglish exchanged passes with Rush and played in Johnston, who scored from the 18-yard line. Benfica had no option but to attack, and Eriksson sent on two attacking substitutes, Filipovic and Sheu. It was Nene, however, scorer in both legs against Liverpool in the same competition six years earlier, who reduced the deficit after 75 minutes, only for Rush to head in his 35th goal of the season and Whelan to make it 5–1 on aggregate in the dying seconds.

At least there was no hangover for Benfica. Instead they took out their disappointment on little Penafiel, who were thrashed 8–0 in the next league game. That weekend, it was announced that Eriksson had agreed a new two-year contract with the club.

Nene’s four goals against Penafiel was his third hat-trick in a month after scoring three against Braga (7–0) and another three at the expense of Farense (7–2). The 34 year old was to finish joint top scorer in the league with 21 goals, overshadowing his partner Filipovic, who was no longer a fixture in the side. A young Danish newcomer, Michael Manniche, was often preferred, and the Yugoslav didn’t like it. The situation came to a head before the league match at home to next-to-bottom Estoril, when Filipovic hoped to net a hatful, only to get word that Manniche was in again. Sounding off in the local press, Filipovic insisted he was the better player. ‘I have greater experience and technically I’m stronger,’ he said. ‘Also, his timing is often wrong when he challenges for the ball in the air. I understand that Glenn Stromberg has to play in midfield, and that it is between Manniche and myself for the other foreigner’s place, but I have scored six goals in six matches for us this season, and four of those have been the winner. So why does he play instead of me? I don’t understand it.

‘The coach wants us to play a much more modern style of football than Benfica are used to. Eriksson wants us to run off the ball, when in the past, in the Portuguese style, we tended to do all our running on the ball. Eriksson must think Manniche is better suited to this game, but to be honest, although we have been winning, we haven’t always been playing very well. I did well enough for Eriksson last season, scoring plenty of goals. He should give me a chance again.’

Eriksson’s reaction to this outburst was surprising. He played Filipovic against Estoril. What followed was just one of many instances that fuelled his reputation as a lucky manager. Benfica took the lead midway through the second half, with a Diamantino header, but Estoril equalized after 75 minutes. Then, with eight minutes left, Filipovic and the Estoril goalkeeper, Manuel Abrantes, went for a loose ball, Filipovic made his challenge fractionally late and was booked. No problem there, but he launched into a tirade against the referee, Antonio Ferreira, who sent him off. Eriksson had no more trouble from his erstwhile critic, who admitted he had blown his last chance. ‘It was my fault,’ he said, ‘but there was plenty of bad language from others out there, and I don’t see why he had to pick on me. For a comeback game, things couldn’t have gone worse.’

Benfica went on to win the league, for the 26th time, by four points from Sporting. The issue was decided on the penultimate day, when Chalana’s goal, in a 1–1 draw with Sporting, rendered the last set of results of arithmetical interest only.

Eriksson had verbally agreed a new contract, committing himself to the club for another two years, but the European Cup Final, between Liverpool and Roma, on 30 May found him in Rome. Nils Liedholm had indicated that he would be leaving Roma, and when Eriksson flew in for the match, the suspicions of the Italian media were aroused. He told an impromptu press conference: ‘I have a new, two-year contract with Benfica. That isn’t easily broken, you know. In fact, I haven’t even got a ticket for the game. Benfica applied for me, but we haven’t received a reply.’ Later, it transpired that Ann-Christin had been touring Rome, being shown luxury apartments, while her husband watched the final.

Eriksson now had had a change of heart, and told the Benfica president, a builder and property magnate named Fernando Martins, that he would be leaving, after all, for Roma. According to Eriksson, the president had agreed to sell Ricardo to Paris St Germain behind his back, which rendered their agreement null and void. ‘If you are going to sell my players without telling me, then I’ll go too,’ he said. Martins, furious, followed him to Italy to demand compensation from his new employers. Stromberg was surprised, ‘but only a little bit’, by his mentor’s decision to leave after all. ‘He had told me, one month before, that he was going to stay, but I could understand what he did. Benfica are a great club, they won the league every year, so they were always in the European Cup, but for a coach like Sven, Italy meant a lot more. Football in Portugal is very big, but there are only three clubs of any real size – Benfica, Sporting and Porto. The rest don’t mean much. Going to Italy, to train a team like Roma, was a dream for Sven. When I heard he was going, I went, too. To Atalanta.’

CHAPTER TEN ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

Sven-Goran Eriksson could have come to England nearly 20 years earlier. In May 1984, Tottenham Hotspur were looking for a manager to replace Keith Burkinshaw, and the chairman, Irving Scholar, approached two candidates, one of whom was Eriksson. Scholar told me: ‘Sven was just about to leave Benfica. He said he’d had a meeting with the people at Roma, and that basically he’d shaken hands on a deal, although nothing had been completely finalized. His agent at the time was a nice chap called Borge Lantz, who lived in Portugal, at Cascaes. I approached him because Sven had come to my attention as being a young, bright European coach with a future. He’d been successful at Gothenburg, winning the UEFA Cup, and he’d done well at Benfica. I’d heard a whisper that he was ready to move on, and so I checked him out.

‘I’d just been let down by Alex Ferguson, and I do mean let down. We’d had a few meetings and a lot of conversations, and I’d said to him: “Look, when everything is sorted we’ll shake hands, and that’s it.” He said: “Oh yeah, I’m that type of bloke as well,” so that was fine. Or so I thought. Anyway, we had our last meeting in Paris. We’d agreed the contract, everything. All the “t”s were crossed, all the “i”s dotted, so I said: “Are you ready?” He said he was. We’d both made great play of this thing about the handshake. I put my hand out, we shook hands, and he said, “Right then, that’s it.” I thought “great”, but five or six weeks later I started to get the impression that he was going to let me down. It was when he did that I spoke to Lantz about Eriksson. He said: “Go ahead, have a word with him, here’s his number.” So I called Sven and he made it clear that he had given his word to Roma, but that if the move fell through he would be very interested in coming to England. He went to Roma, and the rest is history. It was a shame. It would have been interesting to have a foreign coach all that time ago. It has become the fashion now, but it would have been ground-breaking then. Nobody in England had heard of him in 1984. It was “Sven-Goran Eriksson, who’s he?” When I bumped into him in England just after his appointment, I reminded him of the Tottenham thing, and his face lit up. If only, eh?’

Having missed out on Eriksson and Ferguson, who stayed at Aberdeen for another two years before joining Manchester United, Spurs gave the job to Burkinshaw’s number two, Peter Shreeves, and it was another three years before Terry Venables became the European-orientated coach Scholar wanted. In March 2002, in reflective mood, he said: ‘My first two choices weren’t bad ones, were they – Alex Ferguson and Sven-Goran Eriksson. I wanted Ferguson because, like Eriksson, he’d been successful in Europe. He’d won the Cup-Winners’ Cup and blazed a trail in Europe with Aberdeen.’

On 8 May 1984, three weeks before the European Cup Final, the president of Roma, Dino Viola, agreed with Eriksson that he would replace his fellow Swede, Nils Liedholm, as coach. He was not the first choice for the job, getting it only after Giovanni Trapattoni, then at Juventus, had spurned Viola’s overtures, but however the chance came, this really was the big time. Italy’s Serie A was undoubtedly the strongest, most glamorous league in the world at the time, and Roma had won the coveted scudetto in 1983. In 1983/84 they won the Italian Cup, beating Verona in the final, and were runners-up in Serie A, two points behind Juventus, as well as losing only on penalties to Liverpool in the European Cup. Eriksson, then, inherited a fine team, which had two world-class Brazilians, Falcao and Cerezo, at its fulcrum, with the ‘golden boy’ of Italian football, Bruno Conti, who had just made his international debut, wide on the right. Other significant individuals included the goalkeeper, Franco Tancredi, who had played twice for Italy, left-back Aldo Maldera, who had 10 caps, midfielders Carlo Ancelotti and Giuseppe Giannini, both of whom were to have substantial international careers, and strikers Maurizio Iorio, Roberto Pruzzo and Francesco Graziani. Iorio, 25, had been the leading scorer in Serie A the previous season, while on loan to Verona, and was naturally recalled, while Pruzzo, 29, had been the league’s top scorer in 1980, and had scored a brilliant equalizer against Liverpool in the European Cup Final. He had six caps. The most celebrated of the front men was Graziani, 32, whose 64 appearances for Italy took in the 1978 and 1982 World Cups. Despite the talent in the team, however, Eriksson’s first season was thoroughly disappointing. Defensively orientated to a tedious degree, Roma averaged less than a goal a game (33 in 34) in finishing a poor seventh in the league, and got no further than the last eight of the Cup-Winners’ Cup, where they were eliminated by Bayern Munich, for whom Lothar Matthaus was at his peerless best.

In mitigation, Eriksson’s entry into the Machiavellian world of Italian football was by no means straightforward. For a start, he was handicapped by the rule prohibiting foreigners from managing at club level (Liedholm had taken out dual citizenship to overcome this). Roma sought to get around it by naming a coach, Roberto Clagluna, as their official ‘trainer’, with Eriksson taking the title of director of football, but this use of a ‘stooge’ created more problems than it solved.

On taking over, Eriksson immediately asserted his authority by banning smoking, amending the bonus system to stop the players being rewarded for drawing games and ending ‘retiro’, the practice whereby the team ‘retired’ to weekend training camps. This latter decision, he now admits, was a mistake. He explained: ‘I tried to put an end to the custom of meeting at a hotel before our Sunday matches. When we finished training one Saturday, I told the players: “See you at lunch tomorrow.” This caused astonishment, and in the end I had to reinstate the meetings. Ritual and habit can provide security.’

In August, Roma won a pre-season tournament in Coruna, Spain, where top-class opposition was provided by Manchester United, Athletic Bilbao and Vasco da Gama, of Brazil, and the week before the Serie A programme started, they defeated Lazio 2–0 in the Italian Cup. After that it was a surprise, as well as a disappointment, when they were ominously slow out of the traps, with four successive draws in the league and a run of eight games without a win. A month into the season, the Italian Football Federation rejected the coaching association’s complaint against the employment of Eriksson, in defiance of the ban on foreign coaches, and scrapped the prohibition altogether. Freed of all impediments, real or imaginary, he was able to immerse himself in his work, and Roma picked up nicely after their first victory, 2–1 at home to Fiorentina. That was the launching pad for an unbeaten ten-match sequence, yet it was to be a stop-start sort of season, and after 11 games in Serie A their modest return of 12 points had them only in fifth place, six behind the surprise leaders, Verona. They had their moments, thumping Cremonese 5–0 away, Di Carlo getting a hat-trick, but generally flattered only to deceive. Fairly typical was the struggle they had to overcome little Wrexham in the second round of the Cup-Winners’ Cup in November. A single goal, scored by Francesco Graziani in the home leg, was enough to see off Steaua Bucharest in the first round, after which Welsh opposition, from the Football League’s Fourth Division, was expected to provide easy pickings. Roma won 2–0 at home in the first leg, with goals from Pruzzo and Cerezo, in a match notable for the return of Carlo Ancelotti, the powerful Italian international midfield player, who had been out injured for 11 months. The aggregate margin, 3–0, was comfortable enough, but The Times reported the decisive second leg as follows: ‘Only disgraceful refereeing in the first leg, and a rush of blood to the head at the wrong moment in the second stood between Wrexham and an extraordinary overall victory. Cushioned as they were by two highly debatable goals in the first leg, it would be easy to say that Roma, runners-up in the European Cup only six months ago, did just enough to dispose of England’s [sic] 89th best team. But the truth is that they might easily have trooped from the field here a beaten team, had it not been for some hasty finishing and the magnificence of Falcao, the Brazilian, who covered an amazing amount of ground for someone supposedly unfit.’

Falcao had joined Roma from the Brazilian club Internacional for £950,000 in 1980, and was widely acclaimed as the best midfield player at the 1982 World Cup. Twice Brazil’s Footballer of the Year, he came third in the World Footballer of the Year poll, behind Paolo Rossi and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, in 1982. Extravagantly gifted and immensely experienced, the 30 year old was expected to be the cornerstone of Eriksson’s team, but he injured his knee in a goalless draw with Verona on 21 October and then the president, Viola, complained bitterly about his failure to play against Juventus in Turin the following week. Falcao was carrying two stitches in his knee, but Viola felt he was fit enough to play, and a war of words ensued. Viola said that Cerezo, not Falcao, was Roma’s key player, Falcao took umbrage and Eriksson was caught in the middle, very much the loser. Falcao suffered more knee trouble in a 0–0 stalemate, against Lazio, on 11 November, and the Brazilian’s continuing fitness problems undermined the team that season. A superstar, on a two-year contract worth £1.5m, and a living legend among the club’s supporters after his colossal contribution to the 1983 title win, he dated Ursula Andress while still living with his mum in a sumptuous villa in the fashionable Monte Mario part of the city, and was ferried to and from training (and everywhere else) in a chauffeur-driven BMW. Unfortunately for all concerned, he spent most of the 1984/85 season on various treatment tables, eventually undergoing surgery on his troublesome knee in the United States before a lengthy convalescence at home in Brazil.

His last game for Roma was away to Maradona’s Napoli on 16 December 1984. Typically, he marked his farewell with a goal, but after celebrating with his usual jump, he returned to earth awkwardly, and the smile froze on his lips. Five days later, he was on the operating table for more surgery on his knee. The whole team had been dependent upon Falcao to an unhealthy degree, Eriksson felt. ‘Due to his knee problem, he had only four matches with us during my time at the club, but in the games he played, Roma were a completely different team. He went around the pitch pointing and co-ordinating. When he wasn’t able to play, the others would come to me and say: “We can’t play without Falcao.” That season we came seventh in the league. The following year, with just about the same team, we came second and won the cup. But it took me a whole year to get the players to understand that we could play without Falcao. Without him, the players had a mental block. Falcao’s presence, or absence, was decisive in determining how the players felt, and this in turn determined how well they played.’

Searching for a contemporary comparison, Eriksson told me: ‘If he was playing today, Falcao would be another Patrick Vieira.’ When Falcao was unavailable, the Roma midfield was staffed by Cerezo, Ancelotti, Conti and Giannini, an elegant stalwart who was to make 318 appearances for the club between 1981 and 1996. For goals, Roma relied largely upon Pruzzo, the most prolific striker in the club’s history, who weighed in with a modest eight in 21 league games. That Giannini, with four, was the second-highest scorer says it all about Roma’s football that season. Graziani, a World Cup-winning striker with Italy two years earlier, managed only two in 19 matches.

By January they were moving up the table, after successive 1–0 wins against Torino and Avellino, but the crowd, and the critics, were not happy. The newspapers complained that Roma were playing in an unsophisticated ‘English’ style. Quite right too, after their defeat by Liverpool, countered Viola. He’d had enough of Liedholm’s ‘lateral football’.

The cup competitions provided little by way of relief. After knocking out Genoa 3–0 and Lazio 2–0, Roma came unstuck in the quarter-finals of the Italian Cup, where they lost on the away-goal rule to Parma, who were then near the bottom of Serie B. In the Cup-Winners’ Cup, they reached the last eight, where they came up against Bayern Munich. It was billed as the tie of the round, but the first leg, in Bavaria on 6 March, was something of a damp squib. Bayern were without Michael Rummenigge, who was ill, and rushed Soren Lerby back to bolster their midfield when he was still suffering from the after-effects of ’flu, but they were still too strong for Roma, running out comfortable 2–0 winners. Reinhold Mathy missed two easy chances, Matthaus fired over when unmarked and Dieter Hoeness headed negligently the wrong side of a post before skipper Klaus Augenthaler finally gave Bayern the lead, just before half-time, with a rasping shot from distance. Pruzzo might have equalized after 72 minutes. Instead, Hoeness got the Germans’ second five minutes later, and Roma had it all to do in the return.

By the time it came around, on 20 March, Eriksson’s team were a disappointing seventh in the league, with 23 points from 20 games. Effectively, the tie was all over by the 33rd minute, when Tancredi fouled Mathy to enable Matthaus to make it 3–0 on aggregate from the penalty spot. Sebastiano Nela pulled one back after 80 minutes, but it was much too late, and anyway Bayern scored again within a minute, to win 2–1 on the night and 4–1 overall.

Finishing seventh in the league was nowhere near good enough for a club who had been runners-up and European Cup Finalists the previous year, and Eriksson needed something much better for the 1985/86 season if he was to keep his job. Poland’s Zbigniew Boniek, from Juventus, was chosen to replace Falcao, who made his last appearance in a friendly against Ajax in May, then went home to Brazil. He was still under contract to Roma, but when he was summoned back to Rome for medical checks, he ignored the call, with the result that Viola applied to the Italian federation for permission to cancel his contract and, to considerable surprise, won the case. ‘He’d had a couple of very bad injuries, and was never the same afterwards,’ Eriksson explained. Furious, Falcao entered into abortive negotiations with Fiorentina, before joining Sao Paulo. Five major corporations raised the money the Brazilian club needed, which was £1m for one season. Some £600,000 of this went to Roma, with Falcao pocketing the rest.

Red tape meant it was 10 August before Roma’s lawyers succeeded in getting his contract declared null and void, and at one stage, because of the limitation on foreign players, it seemed that they would have to ‘park’ Cerezo on loan somewhere to make room in the team for Boniek. ‘Zibi’, as he was known, had first come to the fore as a 22 year old, when he was one of the stars of the 1978 World Cup, in Argentina. Four years later, in Spain, he scored a hat-trick against Belgium, playing as a striker, and his all-round excellence was such that he finished his career in Serie A playing as a sweeper. When he arrived from Turin, it was said that he was Viola’s choice, not Eriksson’s, but the coach will not have that. He told me: ‘It was a decision made jointly between us. Nobody was ever signed by a club president without my complete agreement.’ Nevertheless, Eriksson had more arguments with Boniek than any other player, and was soon admonishing him for his passion for gambling (he bought a racehorse), suggesting he concentrate on his other off-the-field interests, chess and bridge. He was, however, a player worth indulging. ‘He was a different type to Falcao, not so authoritative, but top-class technically,’ Eriksson says. With Boniek at the hub of the team, Roma’s improvement was startling. Such was Eriksson’s success in convincing his players that they could win without Falcao that they challenged for the championship all season and won the Italian Cup. They started as they meant to go on, with successive victories away to Atalanta, 2–1, and at home to Udinese, 1–0. Pruzzo was quickly off the mark, scoring Roma’s first goal of the season. Revelling in the improved lines of supply engineered by Boniek, the young striker rattled in 19 goals in 24 appearances, including all five in the 5–1 trouncing of Avellino. ‘Pruzzo was extraordinary in the penalty area,’ Boniek told me. ‘He was a very good header of the ball, and lethal in front of goal. He scored so often because he was a natural finisher.’ Boniek himself weighed in with seven in 29 games, five of them coming in a midseason purple patch which brought five in five, and with Graziani also contributing five (in 14 matches), the team’s total was up from 33 to 51.

After the first 11 games, Roma were only sixth in the table, six points behind the leaders, Juventus, but after 21 they had closed the gap to just three points, and lay second. They had won more matches – 14 to Juve’s 13 – and had scored more goals (34 to their rivals’ 31). Then, with six rounds of the championship left, Roma beat Juventus 3–0, with goals from Graziani, Pruzzo and Cerezo signalling the start of a charge.

From being 12 points behind Juve at one stage, they came within touching distance of the scudetto. Going into the penultimate round of fixtures there was just one point between Juve, who were playing Milan, and Roma, who were at home to Lecce. The momentum was with Eriksson’s team, who were widely regarded as favourites for the title, when disaster struck. Roma, unaccountably, lost 3–2 to Lecce, who were bottom of the table and already condemned to relegation, thereby blowing their title chances. Everything seemed to be going to plan when Graziani scored after only seven minutes, but then Di Chiara equalized and a Berbas penalty gave Lecce the lead. Eight minutes into the second half, Berbas scored again, and Juve were home and dry. A goal from Pruzzo, after 82 minutes, was no sort of consolation. ‘Still today I think about that match with a lot of anger,’ Boniek says. ‘That defeat against Lecce put an end to our dreams. It was a game we had to win and should have won. It can happen sometimes, that the top team loses to the bottom, but I still find that result hard to accept.’

Giannini, offering an interesting insight into the Italian footballer’s mentality, says: ‘We arrived at that game exhausted, and at the interval we made another mistake. We thought we could make a meal of Lecce, without ever trying to get them on to our side. It is probably not completely ethical what I say, but perhaps it would have been better to try to reason with our opponents, asking them openly not to overdo their efforts.’

Looking back, Eriksson says: ‘If I could do it all over again, I would take the team away from Rome – away from the interference of club directors, the president, then fans and the media. Then, perhaps, things might have gone differently.’

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