Joe Lovejoy - Sven-Goran Eriksson

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.

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.’