Joe Lovejoy - Sven-Goran Eriksson

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.”’

‘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.’