Sven-Goran Eriksson won the game of life

File photo dated 23-03-2024 of Liverpool Legends manager Sven-Goran Eriksson. Photo: Byrne/PA Wire.

It takes a mammoth effort by today’s leading football managers not to have their personalities bent out of shape by the money and power all around them. Sven-Göran Eriksson refused to yield. He was the last to be guided as much by the pleasure principle as tactical ideas.

Eriksson died as he lived: as his own man, with his lust for life intact, not as a head of department forced by private equity or a nation state to play the earnest tactical genius. Where today’s upwardly mobile coaches hope to convince dressing rooms full of multimillionaires of their credibility, Eriksson impressed his players with a narrow coaching manifesto but a broad appreciation of human nature.