Swedish coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who coached the England national team between 2001 and 2006, died on Monday at the age of 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, his agent said.
“He passed away peacefully this morning in the presence of his family at his home,” Eriksson’s agent Bo Gustafsson told AFP.
The Swedish coach, who has coached a number of prominent teams and led England to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006, announced in February 2023 that he would step away from public life due to “health issues”.
In January, he told public broadcaster Safarias Radio that he had pancreatic cancer, and that his doctor’s assessment was that he “could live a year at best, and a little less at worst.”
“We knew about it but it happened so quickly. We were not prepared for it to happen today,” Gustafsson told AFP.
Born on February 5, 1948 in Sunne, western Sweden, Eriksson had a great coaching career after retiring as a player, playing as a defender, but he did not shine much.
In 1977, he became the coach of Swedish club Degerfors. After leading the modest club to success in the lower divisions, he attracted the attention of several major clubs.
He later supervised the club “AFK Göteborg” before transferring his experience abroad by supervising the Portuguese club Benfica, in addition to several Italian clubs, including Roma and Lazio.
Taking over the supervision of the English national team is the highest task for Eriksson, especially since he was the first foreign coach to lead the Three Lions.
During this period, he succeeded in leading the English national team to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, where they were eliminated by Brazil, which later won the title.
England also reached the quarter-finals the following edition in a match that Portugal won on penalties and which also featured a brawl between Wayne Rooney and his then Manchester United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.
He later coached Mexico, Ivory Coast and the Philippines, but never coached his own national team.
The Swede won the European Cup Winners’ Cup with Lazio (1999), the league (1999-2000), the Italian Cup four times (once with both Roma and Sampdoria), the Italian Super Cup and the European Super Cup.
He finally achieved his dream of becoming Liverpool manager in a match that brought together some of the club’s legends against Ajax Amsterdam in May at Anfield.
Eriksson sat on the bench alongside former stars Ian Rush, John Barnes and John Aldridge, leading a team of Liverpool legends that also included Jerzy Dudek, Martin Skrtel, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, against a host of former Ajax players.
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