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.
