Sven-Göran Eriksson died on Monday at the age of 76 from pancreatic cancer, but his mark on football history remains indelibly written by a coaching visionary.
When he was still a young man of 30, he took over the reins of the club that would launch him to international stardom: Göteborg, a historic club in Swedish football that he rescued to add two cups to his list of achievements and the first European title in his country’s football, with the 1982 UEFA Cup, won against Hamburg, one of the leading teams of the time.
In an attempt to repeat the feat, Benfica set their sights on him and came close to equalling it, but the Lisbon team, eternal victim of Béla Guttmann’s curse to take over the continental throne, fell in the final of the then third European competition against Anderlecht.
In Portugal he had no rivals and won the league competition in the two years he was in charge during his first spell at ‘As Águias’, where he also won a cup and promoted the careers of youngsters such as Fernando Chalana, António Veloso and his compatriot Glenn Strömberg, recruited by himself from Göteborg, where he had made him debut.
Passing through Italy
After conquering Portugal, Eriksson moved to what was then the best league in the world: Serie A. He tried his luck with Roma, who had just suffered the greatest sporting tragedy in their history, losing the European Cup final at the Olympic Stadium to Liverpool.
Eriksson managed to revive the Giallorossi, with whom he won the Cup in his second season and was close to taking the Serie A title from Michel Platini’s Juventus. In the Italian capital he managed a young Carlo Ancelotti, on whom he would have a great influence in his later time in the dugout, as the current Real Madrid coach acknowledged at the time.
After three seasons he moved to Fiorentina, with whom he was unable to achieve his objectives, beyond qualifying for the UEFA Cup in his second year.
He left behind the legacy of the rise of one of the most iconic footballers in the history of Italian football: Roberto Baggio.
After five years in Italy, the Swede returned to Benfica. He helped the Reds reach the European Cup final in Vienna against Milan, but once again the curse of Guttmann stood in his way.
His second stage, coinciding with the rise of Porto, was less fruitful in terms of success, but it was in terms of heritage. His sensitivity towards promising youngsters brought Rui Costa, Paulo Sousa and Paulo Madeira to the arena.
The Swede returned to Italy to take charge of Sampdoria in 1992, which had just played in the European Cup final against Barcelona.
Although he was unable to match the record of his predecessor, Vujadin Boskov, Eriksson would win an Italian Cup with the Genoese. He then reached the semi-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup the following year and succeeded in replacing the Vialli, Mancini, Pagliuca and Vierchowod generation with players such as Jugovic.
After five years at Genoa, Eriksson moved to the great rival of the first team he managed in Italy, Lazio, to build the best team in its history.
Contribution of stars
Thanks to youngsters like Nesta, Stankovic, Nedvěd and recruited veterans like Mancini, Verón, Mihajlović or ‘Cholo’ Simeone himself, the Sunne coach put together a team that was impregnable in defence and lethal in attack.
After losing the 1998 UEFA final to Ronaldo’s Inter Milan, Eriksson bolstered his team in a definitive way and won the Cup Winners’ Cup – the last edition in the history of the competition – against Hector Cuper’s Mallorca.
In his third season, he sublime his work. Thanks to an unexpected defeat in the last matchday of Juventus in Perugia, Lazio broke a 26-year wait and won the second Serie A in its history.
Four days later, against Inter at San Siro, he won the Italian Cup, rounding off the best season in Roman history.
The Swede was unable to extend his work in the top continental competition to the following season, as, when he was in the second group stage of the competition, he received a call that would change his destiny.
England, in a dramatic moment after their elimination in the first round of the European Championship and in a very complicated moment in the first stage of the qualification for the 2002 World Cup, put themselves in the hands of Eriksson and thanks to a 1-5 win over Germany in Munich and a masterful goal by Beckham, to whom he gave the captaincy, from a direct free kick against Greece, he put the ‘Pross’ in the 2002 World Cup.
England, with Beckham, Owen, Ferdinand, Neville and Scholes, started off with a victory over Argentina, the so-often executioner, in the first phase, but Brazil, with a free kick from Ronaldinho, eliminated them in the quarter-finals, their cursed border with the British in all their tournaments.
Falls with England
He also lost to Portugal at Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup, both times from the penalty spot. Germany 2006 was Eriksson’s last tournament with England.
His latest adventures, which included a spell at the last Manchester City team before the United Arab Emirates, Ivory Coast at the 2010 World Cup, some Chinese teams and the Philippines national team, his last experience as a coach in 2019, have kept him away from the international spotlight.
He returned to it when he announced in January of this year that he was suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer. In recent years he has given several interviews to discuss his feelings knowing that his final farewell awaited him.
Stockholm / EFE
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2024-08-27 11:34:49
