Читать книгу Sven-Goran Eriksson - Joe Lovejoy - Страница 8

Having agreed on the man they wanted, the Football Association’s problem was that Eriksson was under contract to Lazio, the Italian champions, who were still in the Champions’ League and intent on winning the European Cup. Naturally they wanted to keep the coach who had brought them the coveted scudetto. Adam Crozier, however, was not about to be deterred, and within two days of his first approach to the Roman club he had his man. He recalled: ‘My attitude was: “If you’re going to go for someone, do it properly. Make your move quickly, equipped with everything you need to get the business done. Get it done there and then, on the spot.” So I prepared everything I’d need to have with me when I got to speak to Sven about the job. I had analysis of matches, profiles of the players – not just the senior squad but the Under-21s and those coming through the youth scheme, right down to the Under-15s. I had videos of all the key games, statistics, everything. That enabled me to say to him: “Look, this is where we are, this is where we’re going, this is what we want to try to do.”

‘The other key thing when I made the move was to be able to offer our man a long-term contract. I’d got the people here [the FA] to agree to five years. If our objective was to win a major tournament by 2006, the contract should last until then. We needed stability, and five years provided the opportunity to train up people with the potential to take over.’

Crozier and David Dein, who has emerged in recent years as the most dynamic member of the FA board, flew to Rome by private jet on Sunday 29 October 2000, and prepared overnight for their meeting with Lazio and their coach the following day. Crozier said: ‘We met Sergio Cragnotti [the Lazio president], his son, Massimo, Dino Zoff [Lazio vice-president and former coach] and one or two others at the club’s training ground, at Formello. Sven was present for some of the time. Cragnotti senior was an absolute gentleman. Top class. We explained why we wanted to speak to Sven, and Mr Cragnotti said he was caught in two minds. Lazio had just enjoyed their most successful season ever, and were on a high, but he and Sven had become very close. A bond had been built up between them over a momentous season, and he didn’t want to stand between his friend and what he wanted. From our point of view, that was a great attitude – one not many would have taken.

‘At this stage Mr Cragnotti asked Sven to join us, and said: “Do you want to talk to them?” Sven said: “Yes, I would very much like to. This is the sort of job I’ve dreamed about, it’s something I’ve always wanted to try.” The second stage was for us to talk to him, and we did that there and then. Everything was agreed between us within 24 hours.’ Money was never a problem, Crozier insisted, and nor should it have been, with £2.5m a year, plus bonuses, on the table. In comparison, just four years earlier Terry Venables was on £125,000 a year when he took England to the semi-finals at Euro 96, and Kevin Keegan had been getting £800,000 annually. At Lazio, Eriksson earned £1.75m a year, tax free. ‘The third stage,’ Crozier said, ‘was agreeing with Mr Cragnotti the timing of the changeover. Initially, Lazio were unhappy about Sven leaving them before the end of the season because they were still in the Champions’ League, but eventually we managed to persuade them to meet us halfway. Sven would join us part-time from February, in time for our game against Spain at Villa Park. Sven wanted to finish on a high with Lazio, to repay Mr Cragnotti. He didn’t want to leave them in the lurch. There was that closeness between the two of them.’

Reluctantly, Crozier and Dein accepted that there was going to be an interregnum. Fortunately, they thought, they had just the right man to plug the gap. ‘We had a friendly coming up against Italy,’ Crozier explained, ‘and our initial objective was to get Bobby Robson as caretaker for that one game, with Steve McClaren and Peter Taylor backing him up. We were a bit surprised when Newcastle said no to that, and poor old Bobby was devastated. He really wanted to do it, and I don’t really see why he couldn’t have done so. After all, it was never the intention to have Bobby for more than that one game. What we said to Newcastle was: “Look, we don’t want your manager full-time because it’s not the future for us, but depending on who we go for [we didn’t want to give away who we were after], could we have him part-time?” Once we couldn’t get him, we made the decision to promote Peter and Steve. The reason for that was that Bobby was unique. He’d done the job before, and everybody would know that he wasn’t going to be our future because of his age. There was no point drafting somebody else in for one game, better to go with youth.’

Eriksson’s decision had been quickly made. He said: ‘My intention had been to stay another year with Lazio, but when the offer from the FA came, I immediately felt: “This is exactly what I want to do.” Such an offer comes only once in a lifetime. I never analysed the risks involved. I never thought: “I might not succeed.” On the contrary, I thought: “If I don’t accept, I won’t be able to sleep at night, wondering what I could have done with the job.” My intuition told me what to do, as it has done every time a new offer has come up. Of course it was a big change to take on England, but it was a bigger step, and an even greater risk, to move from the little village of Torsby and the coaching job with Degerfors to a club the size of Gothenburg. The step from Rome to London didn’t feel as big.’

He had not given much thought to being a foreigner. ‘Sweden had an English coach [George Raynor] in 1958, when they went to the World Cup finals. Why, then, shouldn’t a Swede take England? I read the book The Second Most Important Job In The Country, which is all about the England managers from 1949 through to Kevin Keegan. It showed that all of them were declared idiots at some time, even Sir Alf Ramsey, so I knew what to expect.’

It was as well that he was prepared. The FA’s decision to appoint their first non-English manager in 128 years of international football immediately polarized public opinion. John Barnwell of the League Managers’ Association and Gordon Taylor of the PFA objected strongly, on the grounds that the job should always go to an Englishman. Barnwell described it an ‘an insult’ to his members, and Taylor accused the Football Association of ‘betraying their heritage’. Their comments were widely reported, and, as tends to be the way of it, the newspapers split roughly on tabloid-broadsheet lines, with the likes of The Times and the Daily Telegraph open-minded while others were anything but. The Sun was at its most xenophobic, declaring: ‘The nation which gave the game of football to the world has been forced to put a foreign coach in charge of its national team for the first time in its history. What a climbdown. What a humiliation. What a terrible, pathetic, self-inflicted indictment. What an awful mess.’ Jeff Powell, in the Daily Mail, was outraged, fulminating: ‘England’s humiliation knows no end. In their trendy eagerness to appoint a designer manager, did the FA pause for so long as a moment to consider the depth of this insult to our national pride? We sell our birthright down the fjord to a nation of seven million skiers and hammer throwers who spend half their year living in total darkness.’ The speed with which these opinions changed, once Eriksson’s England started winning, will be seen later.

The new manager was presented to the English media at the ungodly hour of 8am on 2 November 2000. The venue chosen was the Sopwell House Hotel, St Albans, which is convenient for Luton airport, and the time unusually early to enable Eriksson to get back to Rome (by private plane, of course) in time to take Lazio’s training that afternoon. His arrival at the hotel, which used to be Arsenal’s training base, was akin to a presidential procession. Surrounded by FA flunkies, who resembled an FBI close protection squad, his every step through the corridors was tracked by television camera crews, whose lights had him transfixed, like a startled rabbit caught in the headlamps of an oncoming car. The tabloid rottweilers were out in force, scrutinizing his every move and nuance. Much was made of the fact that he wore a poppy, with Remembrance Day in the offing. The Daily Express sarcastically (but accurately) observed that, coming from a nation of pacifists, he must have had it pinned on him by one of the FA’s spin doctors.

Once television and radio had finished playing ‘how-do-you-feel?’ softball, the press let fly with a few bumpers. Eriksson had little experience of English football, how was his knowledge? Could he name, say, the Leicester City goalkeeper, or the Sunderland left-back? He failed on both counts, and there were those (the author among them) who took delight in pointing out that the two players in question, Ian Walker and Michael Gray, should both be in contention for places in the next England squad. What about David Beckham? Was his best position on the right of midfield or in the centre? ‘Please don’t ask me that today,’ Eriksson said. ‘For sure he’s a great player, but I think I need at least a couple of practices with him before I decide that.’

What did he have to do to turn the England team into winners? ‘The most important thing, as always, is to create a good ambience within the group. If you don’t have that feeling, you will never get good results.’ Tactically, he was not prepared to disclose whether he would be playing 4–4–2 or 4–3–3. ‘But the players’ attitude to the game is much more important, and much more difficult to get right, than finding a formation.’ He was not going to discuss individual players before he started working with them. What he would say was that there was no question of abandoning the 2002 World Cup and concentrating on building beyond it. ‘I think you can do both. Of course you should plan for the future, but to give up on qualifying for the World Cup would be very stupid. As long as there is the slightest possibility still there, you should go for it. I think it is possible to win the group. Even second place in qualifying could get you a gold medal in the end. Give up at this stage? I don’t know those words. I never give up.’

Eriksson met every googly with a bat of Boycottesque straightness, hiding behind his unfamiliarity with the language when it suited his purpose, to the frustration of his inquisitors. Rob Shepherd, then of the Daily Express, whose nononsense directness has been the bane of many a manager’s life, turned to me afterwards and said: ‘Christ, to think it’s going to be like that for the next five years.’

It was announced at the press conference, almost by way of afterthought, that Eriksson’s number two at Lazio, Tord Grip, would be coming with him to England, as David Dein put it: ‘as his eyes and ears’. In fact Grip, unlike his boss, was released immediately by his Italian employers, and was scouting in England for three months before Eriksson finally arrived to join him. It was Grip, for example, who spotted, and recommended, Chris Powell, the 30–something Charlton Athletic full-back, who was the first rabbit to be pulled from the new managerial hat.

England’s next game, however, was the friendly fixture against Italy in Turin, where Eriksson and Grip were no more than observers. It was left to Peter Taylor to start the overdue process of rejuvenation with a young, forward-looking squad, and a team led by David Beckham for the first time. England lost 1–0, but gave a good account of themselves and Eriksson, who attended the match, was encouraged by the likes of Gareth Barry, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher and Kieron Dyer. His tenure was brief, but Taylor served England well by giving younger players the opportunity to catch the eye. The public liked what they saw, and Eriksson had a fair wind.

Meanwhile, events had taken a turn for the worse at Lazio. The revelation that their coach was keen to leave them for pastures new did nothing for the players’ motivation, and after the England announcement, on 2 November, Lazio’s form disintegrated. They won only six of 14 games, dropping to fifth in Serie A, and Eriksson saw his Champions’ League dream turn to ashes with defeats by Leeds and Anderlecht. By the turn of the year it was apparent that one manager could not properly serve two masters, and on 9 January 2001 Eriksson resigned at Lazio to devote his full attention to England.

The quick-break decision had been made in a petrol station, during the drive to training. It was then that he realized he was running on empty. ‘I just knew I couldn’t go on.’ Minutes later, he drove through the gates of Formello and told his players he was on his way. There were tears, and later an emotional meeting with Cragnotti. At a highly charged press conference, Cragnotti said the man who took Lazio to the title would always find a home back in Rome. ‘I want to see you back here, celebrating a long list of victories with England.’ To which Eriksson leaned across and told him: ‘Yes, and with the World Cup.’

Breaking his contract had cost Eriksson £1.3m, but money was the last thing on his mind. ‘I didn’t like what I did, but it was best for the club. Results in football are everything, and the results had been bad. It was better for Lazio to have somebody else come in and administer the shock that was needed.’

The Lazio fans had been resentful when the news broke of his imminent defection, but that same night he was given a standing ovation when he took his seat for a match against the Chinese national team, which was part of Lazio’s centenary celebrations. The warmth of the reception melted ‘The Ice Man’, reducing him to tears. ‘And believe me, I am not a man who cries easily.’ Cragnotti led the Roman salute, with the words: ‘It is only right that Lazio applauds the man who gave us so much.’

A delighted Crozier was relieved that the waiting was over. He remembered it thus: ‘Lazio found that once it was announced that Sven was going to be the England manager, the public profile that goes with that job made it impossible for him to continue in Rome. There were English journalists camped outside the training ground every day and, as a lot of managers have found, once the players know you are going, discipline and motivation is eroded. It was a difficult situation all round, and just before Christmas we all agreed that, even with the best intentions, the halfway house arrangement just wasn’t going to work. Events were conspiring to make it in the interests of all parties to say: “That’s it. Let’s move on.”’