He lived some life
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What club would they have been at?
City I think.
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Man City I’d say. Hamman and another really old German mid fielder ended up there at one point. Possibly overlapped with him there.
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The almighty City, where else
But that wasn’t all he said. Hamman continued: “With a glass of champagne in hand, he stood and looked out towards the horizon.”
“He took a deep breath, then he spoke in that higgledy-piggeldy Swedish accent. ‘You know Kaiser, I like this place. I think I will manage for another five years and come back here and live with two women. Yes. I think I need two beautiful women.'”
It’s here that we reach classic Sven. Cartoon Sven.
“Two women. Two beautiful women.” It’s the line that if you or I delivered, it would be delivered with the smoothness of a rice cake.
But this a man who once wrote of a woman called Malin: “I was not interested in a steady relationship. It happened that I met other women, too.”
In his mouth, those words become chicken soup for the soul.
It’s worth noting that Sven was on the verge of the sack when he delivered the most glorious quote in football history. A promising start at City had given way to mid-table mediocrity and owner Thaksin Shinawatra had resolved to fire the popular Swede.
Support in the dressing room mattered little and an 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough on the final day of the 2007-08 season, where City players barely lifted a finger in effort, confirmed his departure.
Remembering the tour, Eriksson told us: “No players wanted to go, and neither did I, but I told the players and myself, we have to go. We still are employed by Manchester City and we must be professional.
“Even if you know you’re going to be sacked, you still have to be professional until the end, and then I can say I have done my job and my work. That’s important.
“But it was not good. At that point, everybody knew I would not be the manager the season after, but Thaksin Shinawatra didn’t say anything. I was not sacked at that time. It wasn’t until the last day of the tour that he told me he wanted to change manager.”
In those circumstances, what better than some early morning champagne and dreams of two beautiful women?
Nobody could have handled losing their job quite like Sven.
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RIP Sven.
He got involved with that Ulrika one too whatever he was thinking.
In short, he was the Swedish James Bond. The man many aspire to be. Somebody with his life priorities in order. Somebody unlikely to be poring over footage of the Andorran Premier League like Pep Guardiola.
Oooft
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Sven just got us.
Sven had a brief sexual encounter with Garth Crooks at the 2006 World Cup.
It was never “Eriksson”, it was always “Sven”.
I had high hopes for Sven’s time at Notts County, but alas.
RIP Svennis. He offered to manage AIK when they were going through a tough period before his diagnosis, but they decided he was too old. Seemed a good chap.
Sven was a small part of the furniture of all our lives. As we get older we get used to these irreplaceable small pieces of furniture being put into the skip against our will.
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I remember staying up extremely late to watch his first game in charge on some sort of championship match of the day show.
I think Sol Campbell was playing and literally five lads manhandled him to the ground and he got no free kick.
Was kasper schiechmal in goals?
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His club progression to winning that league with Lazio in the late 90’s was pretty impressive,
England was probably a disappointment considering he never reached a semi final of a major tournament with the so called golden generation.
I’d say he was phoning it in after Lazio. Loved the fame side of it
You’re right.
Some fella bought the Club for a pound or something and promised Premier League Football from League 2.
We all wanted it to succeed but it just wasn’t meant to be.
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Mup
Sven had the immense gift of being able to make being a complete lecher seem completely non-threatening.
Useless bit of trivia - despite managing England for 5 years, Sven never managed England in a match at Wembley