In the last year of his life, he decided to complete his "will list"

In March 2024, in a legendary retirement game at Anfield, Liverpool 4-2 defeated Ajax. In the past, this kind of elder charity contest mostly fulfilled the dreams of the audience on site, and rarely caused widespread response. However, the "Red Army coach" caused the media of all countries to report the match.

Sven Goran- Eriksson 76 year old legendary Swedish coach, who has 42 years of coaching career in Italy, England, Portugal, China and other Asian countries, is the first foreign coach in the history of the Three Lions. At the beginning of this year, he announced that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. Due to his physical condition, he could not accept surgery, and his remaining life expectancy was optimistic about one year.

Having been a Liverpool fan for more than 60 years, he has never had the opportunity to pick up the Liverpool coach. At the end of his life, Eriksson heard more than 50000 fans sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" for him on the sidelines. He laughed and applauded several times, and cried several times.

Not only Liverpool, Eriksson also went to Benfica, Sampdoria, Goteborg and other places where he had fought before, receiving applause and blessings from fans and former disciples. This is what he wrote for himself List of wills , the whole world football world is accompanying old friends to the end of the journey.

He said, "I would like to thank you for recalling the whole life Football It brought me everything. " And football will also thank Sven Goran Eriksson for his many stories.

Like many children born in Sweden in the 1940s, Eriksson's enthusiasm for football also originated from the 1958 local World Cup. At the age of 10, he witnessed the host team march all the way to the final in a dark horse manner, and then lost to Brazil, the first champion, and the born young player Pele.

After the World Cup, the football craze in Sweden has reached an all-time high. TV stations have also begun to broadcast videos and collections of high-level European games such as the League One. His father first became an diehard Liverpool fan, and then brought up young Eriksson to the same home team.

So the young man began to play football and had two childhood dreams.

First, it would be better if Sweden could win the World Cup.

Second, to play in England would be better if I could play for Liverpool.

However, for most people, the distance between dream and reality is always so far away. Sven Goran Eriksson's highlight in his whole career was just a right back who played in Sweden's second level league for two years. Worse still, at the age of 27, he suffered a very serious knee injury, which almost ruined his career ahead of time.

It's a year of recovery, and then try hard to return to the court? Or give up decisively and accept a relative's recommendation to become a decoration worker? In 1975, Eriksson was entangled between these two roads. It was not until Grip, who had briefly coached him, sent an invitation that he found the third option: if the ball is not playing well, then go to the corner to pursue your dream, and become a coach!

In this way, Eriksson became the assistant coach of Grip and continued to stay in the football circle. However, in 1977, Gripp went to the national team as an assistant teacher and threw Dag Fosh, who was still in the third level at that time, directly to him.

Eriksson, who has just practiced in the position of deputy for two and a half years, was suddenly caught up in the "head coach" pose. Then he led the team to upgrade.

Then, he immediately received an invitation from Gothenburg, an old and powerful team of Ruichao. At that time, Gothenburg was in the whirlpool of changing times. It almost went bankrupt and restructured its debts. After being demoted, it returned to the top. It began to be semi professional, following Malmo's example, so that players could have more time to train. In short, they have limited economic conditions and want to learn advanced experience.

Coincidentally, Eriksson paid attention to the football leagues of England, Italy and other powerful countries since he was a child. When he was a coach, he often made long statements that "Swedish football needs to be reformed, learn XXX in tactics, and follow XXX in management". At the same time, he was young and cheap, so he was chosen by Gothenburg.

Of course, there are still many people who think that choosing a coach who has not even taken the second level is purely gambling.

But Gothenburg won the bet, and won big.

Eriksson won the Swedish Cup in his first season in 1979. In 1982, he led Gothenburg to win the Swedish Super League, the Swedish Cup and the European Union Cup at the same time, becoming the first "triple champion" in Swedish football.

You know, the UEFA Cup was quite valuable in that year. The participating teams of that season included Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Arsenal and other giants, and they defeated Valencia, Kaiserslautern, Hamburg and other teams all the way to win the first European championship trophy in the history of the Swedish team.

It is conceivable how many olive branches will be attracted when the 34 year old coach does such a miracle.

A large number of overseas clubs have expressed interest, and Eriksson has never concealed his ambition to go abroad. What are you waiting for? The world of football is as vast as the sea of stars. Go to it!

In a word, Eriksson's coaching style has been deeply influenced by the major powers from the very beginning, and English football is the base.

As mentioned earlier, his guide is Grip, who publicly said that his football philosophy came from a British coach: Bobby Horton, who once coached the Chinese team. When Eriksson became the coach himself, the first assistant was the Englishman Tom Chadney. In addition, when he was in charge of Gothenburg, he wrote a letter to Liverpool head coach Paisley, got the chance to watch the home team's training and competition on the spot, and also talked about tactics with the coaching team for several hours in the famous "boot room".

So, you can see that Sven Goran Eriksson loves the 442 traditional formation in the early and middle stages, or most of his coaching career. Either the two wings of the parallel midfield fly together, and the British classic "long pass Chongdang". Or a diamond shaped midfield player, giving high responsibility and freedom to the front waist and back waist.

But this kind of kick has one drawback: it is too formal, which is really... very ugly. Even if we took Gothenburg to the top, the attendance rate at home dropped by more than 10%.

As a result, Eriksson has been looking for a balance point in his next coaching career.

The first stop abroad is Portugal. He led Benfica to win the Double in the first season and the Portuguese Super League in the second season. In the enthusiastic and open Iberia, Eriksson's two wingers have gained more attacking authority.

Then he seized the opportunity to go to Italy immediately, the "Little World Cup" at that time. This is the "Holy Land" where most of the Swedish team became professional players in 1958, and it is also a paradise for coaches to learn and exchange tactics. First Rome and Fiorentina, and then Benfica entered the Champions League final in the middle. Then he coached Samp and Lazio. Eriksson stayed in Serie A for 14 years.

It was also during this period that the world football world had a relatively complete positioning and evaluation of him.

First of all, Eriksson will bring the football philosophy of the British style 442 to every place, but will also carry out certain integration according to the local football culture.

I just took over Rome and couldn't play at all. I was defeated in the first eight rounds. When we gradually understand the complicated playing methods of Italy's mezzala and trequartista, many midfielders who can play in multiple positions will bring about many changes. For example, Ancelotti, who was only slightly fat at that time, and Bonek the following year.

Secondly, in a competitive environment, Eriksson was evaluated as "It can keep the lower limit of the strength of the lineup, or improve it, but it is difficult to make a huge breakthrough".

In Rome, he almost had a chance to lead the team to win the championship, but at the end of the season, he lost unexpectedly to Lecce and began to lose all the way. In Sampdoria, he caught up with the turbulent period when the whole team's finance began to decline, and he could not turn the environment around by himself. Until the Lazio team with Nedved, Vieri, Veron, Nesta, Miha, Salas, Stankovic and others, Eriksson finally found the perfect balance between practicality and magnificence, ushering in the biggest explosion of his coaching career.

Winning the Italian Cup and the Italian Super Cup in 1998 was just an appetizer.

In 1999, he took the last European Cup Winners' Cup in history and won Manchester United in the European Super Cup.

In 2000, the team finally won the league championship in Serie A, won the Italian Cup and the Super Cup, and won the domestic treble.

However, behind the blue eagle at the turn of the century is short-term investment without cost, and it does not have the same scale of continuous hematopoietic capacity. With the decline of the performance of the 00-01 season, the whole club quickly collapsed, and the luxury lineup became checks sent by the big clubs. And head coach Sven Goran Eriksson went to his dream place.

At the beginning of 2001, the FA announced that Eriksson became the first foreign coach of the Three Lions in history.

You are the ancestor of modern football. English people have extreme confidence in their football culture throughout the 20th century, and have worked out all kinds of great tasks of "what a World Cup I refuse to participate in". For the Three Lions, we always insist on our own people as the leader. No matter who is a foreign coach, we should not think about it. However, after repeatedly being beaten by the reality, a new ethos was finally introduced in the new century.

Then the question arises, why did you set this precedent for Eriksson?

On the one hand, as mentioned earlier, his tactical style itself is based on the British style 442, which can be regarded as the same line. The British players are not totally acclimatized, but they also have the opportunity to absorb the new things he brought from the tactical treasure box of Serie A.

On the other hand, he has a lot of experience in "managing" big names, and can maintain a delicate balance in establishing the authority of the head coach and taking care of the emotions of the stars. The classic case is to treat Mancini The way.

At that time, Mancini played a very important role in Sampdoria. In our words today, Mancini was the "team bully". The positive effect is always fighting high to stimulate morale, and the negative behavior from team-mates to coaches who are unhappy will be directly sprayed, or even the actual hammer will interfere in the transfer business. But he was such a big shot. He was convinced by Eriksson. He was criticized for being lazy in training and never answered back. He followed him to Lazio. In the last season, he simply became a player and assistant.

Mancini later said: "It was Eriksson's gentleness that led me to the road of football coach."

Stankovic said: "I am very lucky that the first coach I met after I came to Serie A was Sven Goran Eriksson. Every player agrees that he is a decent person both in training and in daily life. From Samp to Lazio, more than a dozen of us have been influenced by him to become coaches. Mancini, Simone, Miha, me... It is also because Eriksson that we can become better ourselves. ”

In short, Sven Goran Eriksson was the man of choice in the eyes of the FA at that time. However, after five years of leading the team, the results were only unsatisfactory.

In terms of results, England ended up in the last eight of the two World Cups and the European Cup, and lost to Portugal in two penalty shootouts, and to Ronaldinho in the opening match. Although Sanmiao had won the World Cup in 66 years and won the championship in 90 years before, he was better than him in the whole World Cup competition history. Later, it was not until Sosgate reached the semi-finals in 2018 that he reached the semi-finals. But as you know from the British media, various "strongest in history" and "golden generation" were flying everywhere.

In terms of tactics, he never solved the big problem of "coexistence of Germany and Germany". Play parallel midfield. There is nothing new in the game. Beckham saves the life in the end. Play diamond midfield, Gerald I neither like nor am I used to playing here. Hargreaves is better but too fragile. Change to single striker? Neither the coach nor the players said they would.

All these things were talked about in the newspaper, and finally the whole world was a little tired of them. So the English media began to use the tradition to dig into other stories of Eriksson, such as what happened when she changed 9 lovers seven years after divorce, what she wanted to leave her girlfriend Nancy to introduce her boyfriend, but Nancy refused to break up, what was a secret relationship with the FA Secretary Liya, but Faria also had an "old friend" who was the CEO of the FA

The final climax was that an undercover reporter of the News of the World pretended to be an Arab sheikh, lied to Eriksson that Middle East Capital was about to buy Villa, and asked him if he was willing to coach. The old coach readily agreed, and after a few cups of good wine, he began to complain about the trouble of being England coach, from leaders to subordinates.

As soon as the report was published, there was a great stir, which finally led to Eriksson leaving his post after the 2006 World Cup.

Since then, he has become a "tramp" in football. Manchester City, Mexico, Ivory Coast and Leicester City, all of them only took six months to one year. In 2013-17, he successively coached Guangzhou R&F, Shanghai Shanggang and Shenzhen teams in China. The last stop of my coaching career was when I took the Philippine National Team in 18-19.

Some people say that Sven Goran Eriksson was looking for gold everywhere in his later coaching career. But there are also some commendable points in these wandering experiences.

In 2009, Notts County, the oldest professional club in England, was acquired by the Middle East consortium, and he was employed as director of football at a high salary, but a large part of the contract amount was paid by equity. However, less than half a year later, the oil father ran away with a barrel, leaving only a huge debt. In order to let the club successfully complete the restructuring, Eriksson gave up the creditor's rights worth millions of pounds, and Notts County was able to survive the bankruptcy crisis.

The new board of directors said: "This is an absolute gentleman's acquisition." The fans sang a song for him: "Our encounter was not a good one, but we will always thank you for your success."

During his coaching in China, he took Guangzhou Fuli to the Asian Championship play off, and played hard and confident with fast and smooth attack and defense conversion, especially in the local derby against the hegemon Evergrande. In Hong Kong, he grew up quickly with the slightly immature Chongming Gang, which improved the understanding level of those young players on technology and tactics by a large margin. And no matter where you go, your demeanor and humorous conversation have been widely praised by players and journalists.

After giving up his coaching staff, Eriksson returned to live in Sweden, and began to work as a sports consultant for a low-grade club in 2022. In fact, it is a honorary job. But he also quit his job a year later.

Before long, we all knew why.

In the statement issued at the beginning of 2024, Eriksson said: "People speculate that I have a serious disease, which is true, and it is pancreatic cancer. I have received treatment but cannot operate. The doctor said that the best situation is that there is still one year left."

"But, dear friends, don't be sad for me. We should always look on the positive side. You can cheat your brain. Don't be immersed in adversity at any time."

Eriksson, 76, is still optimistic and firm in the video, just like he used to stand on the coaching seat.

Turning to the next plan, he said that he still wanted to see more games, especially where he had been. "For example, in the friendly match between England and Brazil in March this year, what if this is the preview of the next World Cup final that I can't wait for?"

When talking about what goals have not been achieved, he said that he has been happy enough in his life. But if there is any regret, it is "I never got the chance to be the head coach of Liverpool. After all, like my father, I will still be a Liverpool fan when my death comes."

Hearing such a speech, Liverpool immediately responded. Klopp called directly and hoped to invite Eriksson to be the head coach of Liverpool one day. He would use his own office to take the players to training. On the day of the game, he would try to arrange a seat at the nearest place on the bench. But the physical condition of the old coach did not allow it, so there was the game mentioned at the beginning.

Eriksson became the coach of the legendary Liverpool team. My colleagues are Ian Rush, John Barnes and Aldrich, and my players are Gerrard, Torres, Cisse, etc. The result was that Liverpool fell 2-0 behind and scored four goals in a row. The moment when Eriksson lost his temper most was when the whole Anfield shouted his name in unison, and then sang You'll Never Walk Alone.

In addition to this dream fulfilling trip, Eriksson also prepared a long list of last wishes.

A few days after he announced his illness in January, he returned to Lazio, the most glorious city in his life. Before the match against Lecce, Eriksson walked slowly through the main stand, and all the fans sang their own supporting music that had not faded for more than 20 years. The star studded team didn't arrive at the scene in time, but everyone sent him a blessing video.

In April, he came to Benfica, the first stop for going abroad. Once coached students stood on both sides of the entrance of the stadium, leading the whole crowd to applaud him. There are also many fan families composed of three generations in the stands. Teenagers hold such signs: "You are my grandfather's hero, my father's hero, and my hero."

Ten days later, when he returned to Gothenburg, Sweden, the team chairman personally helped Eriksson to play. The diehard stand played a huge TIFO like he was young, with the slogan "We don't know where it will end, but we always remember where it started". When the players' names were announced before the game, the audience, led by DJ, shouted his name three times in a row, and then applauded for more than a long time.

In May, Eriksson once again came to Italy, where he left countless memories. I visited the teams that have been coached in Rome and Florence, and felt the highest courtesy again at the home of Sampdoria. Mancini accompanied him into the stadium, and the welcome queue was the whole team he had coached. Banners, flags, fireworks, applause, and the whole crowd sang three songs for him in succession.

In addition, due to physical reasons, Eriksson can no longer afford to fly long distances. Most of the time, Eriksson is unable to return to the Chinese Super League arena he once coached. However, the Seaport Club still gave him the best wishes at the first time, and added the Swedish famous coach to the famous coach poster at the entrance of the North Stand, with "YNWA" written on the background.

Life and death are impermanent, and human beings can never avoid death. No matter how successful you are and how much wealth you have accumulated, one day it will suddenly disappear. To become old, weak, ill, or unexpected is futile. So people are always willing to believe that there will be some eternal proof.

It may be the connection between people, love, marriage, and blood relationship of children. Or it is pure belief, which makes the world better and has a passion that will last forever.

In Eriksson's life, this proof belongs to football. He once wrote in his autobiography: "I have achieved many great successes, and I have done many stupid mistakes. Finally, I understand that only death can separate me from football."

So, when the end came, the list of wills was full of football. Go to the stadium and watch one more game.

Therefore, the whole football world has sent respect and respect to his contribution to the sport and the cause that has lasted for decades.

Wish you a happy, relaxed and as long as possible on this road, Sven Goran Eriksson.