Joe Lovejoy - Sven-Goran Eriksson

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.’

‘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.’