Sven-Goran Eriksson stayed classy through England betrayal, criticism and success

Sven-Goran Eriksson sadly died on Monday, having enjoyed a long and successful career as a player and manager, including five years as head coach of the England national team

Lounging by the pool at 10 o’clock in the morning, Didi Hamann was taken aback to see Sven-Goran Eriksson approaching with a bottle of champagne and two glasses on a silver tray.

Manchester City were on an end-of-season tour after signing off with an 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough in the Premier League, and Eriksson knew his days as manager under a Blue Moon were numbered.

When German midfielder Hamann asked what they were supposed to be celebrating, Sven broke into that disarming, alluring smile and announced: “Life, Kaiser. We are celebrating… life.”

If bubbles at 10am was a classy gesture by a condemned man awaiting his summons to the meet the firing squad in the exercise yard, it was entirely in keeping with his enviable charm. Everything Sven-Goran Eriksson did reeked of class.

Even when he was betrayed, as he led England to three quarter-finals at successive major tournaments, the Three Lions’ first non-English manager accepted his fate with remarkable equanimity.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has died aged 76 after a long illness, may not have been the greatest England coach since Sir Alf Ramsey - but he was surely the most dignified.

After a trophy-laden managerial career in his native Sweden, Portugal and Italy - including titles at Benfica and Lazio - his appointment as Kevin Keegan’s successor was greeted, in some quarters, with Little Englander disdain.

One editorial sneered: “We’ve sold our birthright down the fjord to a nation of seven million skiers and hammer throwers who spend half their life in the dark.”

In fact, it was Eriksson who led English football out of the dark ages after Keegan’s abdication in the Wembley toilets following Hamann’s winner for Germany. Barely 11 months later, he had orchestrated a stupendous 5-1 win in Munich to reclaim destiny of England’s World Cup qualification - in isolation, probably their greatest away win of all time.

If the ‘golden generation’ at his disposal did not quite live up to the sum of their parts, two of Eriksson’s three near-misses with glory were on the familiar coconut shy of penalty shoot-outs.

He fielded the blizzard of disapproval which accompanied each exit graciously, observing: "Whichever country you are, if you lose games you are criticised. It’s only when it's England it's like a new world war.

“I always thought I did a good job with England, but people at the time didn’t think so. They had had enough of the Swedish guy only making the quarter-finals.”

When Rooney was sent off against Portugal at the World Cup in Gelsenkirchen 18 years ago, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s wink approving of his Manchester United team-mate’s expulsion, Eriksson - bowing out with two years of his contract remaining - pleaded with the nation’s hanging judges to spare him.

“He is the golden boy of English football, so don't kill him,” said Sven, who would later surmise: “You look at the way some of the big English players of the past have been criticised, like Rooney and David Beckham, and you have to ask: What do you want these players to be?”

One recurring criticism of Eriksson was his alleged lack of emotion and animation in the dugout - as if apoplexy in Swedish would make wayward penalties find their target. He shrugged: “Whenever we lost I was not ‘passionate’ - but I tried to say we won a lot of games when I was the same.”

Against this backdrop of England flirting with success was the manager’s colourful private life, which unmasked Eriksson as an unlikely lothario behind his thinning barnet and rimless spectacles.

Divorced in 1994, seven years before he accepted the England job, his romance with fiery Italian lawyer Nancy Dell’Olio acquired soap opera ablutions when his affair with TV personality and compatriot Ulrika Jonsson came to light.

And by the time another dalliance with an FA secretary - who had also been dating one of the payroll’s top brass - was exposed, a dignified man was lampooned and harpooned again.

When a six-month stopover at Notts County in 2009 began with Lee Hughes scoring a hat-trick in a 5-0 romp against Bradford City, to his eternal shame this hack couldn’t resist a cheap shot about Sven enjoying a threesome. Sven deserved better, reflecting ruefully: “My private life was not very private in England.”

He also walked away without demanding a penny in compensation from a contract worth millions at Meadow Lane, saving County from oblivion. Yet another classy gesture. Typically, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer - an insidious brute which killed this writer’s mother - he stared death in the face with invincible humility.

In the nick of time, before his health deteriorated, Liverpool fulfilled Eriksson’s lifelong wish to coach the Reds in a legends exhibition match at Anfield. His goodbye message, released in a documentary earlier this month, was bereft of self-pity.

”I hope you will remember me as a positive guy trying to do everything he could do,” he said. "Don't be sorry, smile. Thank you for everything, coaches, players, the crowds, it's been fantastic. Take care of yourself and take care of your life. And live it. Bye.”

Good old Sven. Classy right to the end.

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