Sven-Goran Eriksson is no more. And it comes as a huge loss for Italian football, while being an even bigger loss for the game in general.
His biggest achievements perhaps came back home in Sweden, where he won a UEFA Cup title with Goteborg, who were then a workersโ town and had a team full of amateur players. He then won three league titles with Benfica, winning a history league title with Lazio and winning cup competitions with Roma and Sampdoria.ย
La Gazzetta dello Sport have paid a beautiful tribute to Eriksson, who has been described as someone who โoverturned old ideologies and showed new waysโ, as he pioneered a zonal marking system in Sweden and brought it to Italy, where it was prevalent and thriving. He wasnโt left behind in Calcio as he won the league title with an iconic Lazio side in 2000.
His first move came to Roma and Gazzetta look at how he first fell in love with the city a year before the move to the Giallorossi, as he once said in reference to Benficaโs UEFA Cup game against Roma in 1983:
โWe went to spy on them to prepare. During the taxi ride from the airport to the center I fell in love with them. Just like that, suddenly. And when I entered the stadium I told myself that that was a place where I would have to work, one day or another.โ
That move did come a year later and the outlet look at how Sven was always about the โgroupโ and the โunionโ and about the cohesion of the unit. But he wasnโt scared to give individual freedom to Roberto Baggio at Fiorentina, describing him as the greatest player he coached โ alongside Wayne Rooney.
โBaggio had everything: incredible technique, vision, pace. I remember one of our first away games against Sacchiโs Milan. We only crossed the halfway line twice and scored two goals. Baggio scored one. And it wasnโt just any defense. There were Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta and Tassotti.โ
Baggio did thrive under Eriksson and that is a rare thing to say for the magician, who had issues with managers had emphasized on structures. They got along well and the spell allowed Baggio to seek greener pastures too. The same rings true for Roberto Mancini, who was managed by Sven at Sampdoria and they together won a Coppa Italia title. It is still the clubโs last piece of silverware.
Gazzetta state: โCome to think of it, Erikssonโs career has always been a joy, a celebration. Even in the bitter aftermath of a defeat, in moments of tremendous competitive anger, he always found a way to smile.โ
They go onto look at how he had nearly joined Blackburn Rovers before joining Lazio, but Roy Hodgson ended up joining the English side, leaving Eriksson to join the Roman giants. Hodgson was, by chance, an inspiration for Sven, whose zonal marking approach was looked down upon in Sweden but it never fazed him.
The pinnacle of his career came in on May 14th, 2000, when Lazio won the Scudetto. It is still their second title in history and it was achieved by an iconic team, brought together by a manager who was excellent at keeping them as a unit. Sinisa Mihajlovic stood out. His position was changed drastically by Sven, but it worked out excellently and he became an iconic free-kick taker, scoring a hat-trick of those in 1998.
That team had the likes of Alessandro Nesta, Diego Simeone, Juan Veron and would-be Ballon Dโor winner Pavel Nedved. It will go down in Serie A history and more so in Biancocelesti history. So like Sven-Goran Eriksson.
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Kaustubh Pandey I GIFN
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