Looking Back on Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Life and Career

Sven Eriksson
Credit Anders Henrikson via Flickr

Sven-Goran Eriksson died at the age of 76 on the 26th of August, 2024. Born in the small Swedish town of Sunne, not too far from the border with Norway, on the 5th of February, 1948, the man generally known simply as Sven is most known in England due to his stint as manager of the Three Lions.

In January of 2024, he revealed he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He said at the time that he would “fight it as long as possible” but that he had “in the best case it’s about a year, in the worst case even less.” Here we take a look back at his life, career as a manager and his groundbreaking spell as the first foreign manager of England.

So Near and Yet So Far

Sven Eriksson
Credit Doha Stadium Plus Qatar via Flickr

Sven’s career was wide-ranging and took in spells with several major European clubs, as well as four national teams. However, for most football fans in the UK he will be remembered as a former England manager. On paper his England stats look good, and he boasts a very decent win percentage of 59.70%, only losing 10 of the 67 games for which he was in charge.

He was manager of the Three Lions at three major tournaments: the 2002 World Cup, the 2004 Euros and the 2006 World Cup. His sides made the quarter finals of all three of those, losing just two games across the three tournaments, penalties aside. But for a save here or there and a penalty or two being a little higher or lower, his record would have been so much better and England may well have won a major tournament under Sven. But it wasn’t to be.

Critics say that this was a golden generation in terms of the players the Swede could call upon. But then critics have a habit of trying to claim that just about every group and era of England footballers is special and should be world beaters. Yes, England had players such as David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney (in 2004 and 2006, though injuries impacted him at both tournaments), Michael Owen, Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell and Paul Scholes.

However, they had weak areas too, chiefly in goal, and in relation to how to get the best out of Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes. England undoubtedly had some exceptional players at this time but it is equally beyond question that so did all the other great international teams of that time.

England were very strong in qualifying under Sven and when those three quarter finals are weighed up against the tournaments that took place before and after the Swede’s reign, one has to say he did a good job. There were unforgettable highs, chiefly the 5-1 thrashing of Germany in Munich in 2001. Rooney’s brilliance in the group stage of Euro 2004 and a deserved win over Argentina at the 2002 World Cup were also hugely memorable, as was the 3-0 win over Denmark at the same tournament.

Ultimately England didn’t win anything under Sven and that is the bottom line. He said he felt England were not ready at the 2002 tournament but at the 2006 World Cup they were. Who knows what might have happened if Rooney had not gotten injured against Portugal in 2004, or if either of the two shootouts they lost against the Portuguese had gone differently.

The Fake Sheikh

News of the World logoSven’s time with England ended after the 2006 World Cup with his departure already agreed upon. There seems little doubt that a story in the News of the World played a big part in this, the paper tricking Sven with an undercover sting and managing to record him saying that he would be willing to leave England.

It was all rather grubby and indicative of that sort of journalism in that era, with a so-called “fake sheikh” posing as a would-be buyer of Aston Villa. It was a shame his image was tarnished in this way, though it was accepted he had done very little wrong.

Club Career and Management Style


Sven enjoyed success with Swedish minnows Degefors first, before promotion to one of the nation’s biggest clubs, IFK Goteborg. He won two Swedish Cups, the league title and the 1981/82 UEFA Cup with the club, before moving on to Benfica. With the Portuguese giants he claimed much more silverware, and over two separate spells with the club he won three league titles, the Portuguese Cup, as well as losing in the final of the UEFA Cup (1982/83) and European Cup (in his second spell, in 1989/90).

It was perhaps in Italian football that he really built his reputation as a top manager. He won the Coppa Italia with Roma, Sampdoria and Lazio. In addition he guided Lazio to the 1997/98 UEFA Cup final, success in the following season’s European Cup Winners’ Cup, the 1999/2000 Serie A title, and 1999 UEFA Super Cup. That success with Lazio earned him the England job, whilst after the Three Lions he had stints with Man City, Notts County, Leicester, three Chinese clubs, as well as the Mexico, Ivory Coast and Philippines national teams.

Sven was an exceptional man manager, with many former England players praising the way he dealt with players. He created a calm, relaxed environment and gave individual players responsibility. In that way he can be likened to Carlo Ancelotti, although critics have suggested he lacked a little tactical awareness and the eye for detail required in the modern game.

Personal Life


Sven was a right-back as a player though he never made it to the highest level, playing in the lower tiers of Swedish football. Just 29 when he took his first managerial job, he had worked as a PE teacher whilst still playing.

He had two children with his wife Ann-Christine Pettersson, to whom he was married between 1977 and 1994. The English tabloid media’s fascination with his private life puzzled Sven, and his trysts with Nancy Dell’Olio, Ulrika Jonsson and especially FA employee Faria Alam were like catnip to them.

Sven was a lifelong Liverpool fan and had dreamed of managing the Reds. He had talks with them at various times during his career but the timings were never quite right. He got to fulfil a dream shortly before he died by taking charge of a Liverpool Legends side against Ajax in a charity match at Anfield.