Värmland, in western Sweden, is a place of tranquil, ice-blue lakes and a million tall, sharp trees. The landscapes are quiet and vast, the pace of existence slow. It is the ideal environment in which to reflect and, for Sven-Göran Eriksson, now 76, it is where he was born and where he will die. Sven, a feature-length documentary about the football coach, meets him before and after he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis. This knowledge, set against the crisp beauty of Eriksson’s home country, lends Sven a profundity that most sports biographies can’t reach for – but there is plenty to laugh and scream at in a beguiling, multi-faceted film.
First, we chart Eriksson’s unlikely journey from rural Scandinavia to the higher levels of world football. After an average playing career, he cut a tremendously unconvincing figure as the surprise new coach of IFK Gothenburg in 1979, standing hunched and wan during an early training session. By 1982, however, Gothenburg had won the Uefa Cup and Eriksson was hired by big clubs in Portugal and Italy, his innovative tactics and unusually calm touchline presence making him a cult figure as well as a serial trophy winner.
