Former England and Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has opened up on his life-long love for Liverpool.
Eriksson was one of the top coaches of the 80’s and 90’s, taking on a number of big jobs across Europe. The Swede ultimately ended up in England as the national team manager in 2001, before spells at City and Leicester.
Sadly, Eriksson has revealed a terminal cancer diagnosis this week. As a renowned figure in English and European football, the news has come as a shock and has seen the 75-year-old conduct a number of interviews.
One of which was with Sky News, and saw Eriksson admit to a life-long passion that had seemingly previously been kept on the down-low.
“When you talk about football teams, yes, my father is still alive and is still a Liverpool supporter and I’m a Liverpool supporter as well, I’ve always been,” he revealed.
“So, I always wished to be the manager of Liverpool and that will not happen for sure! But I’m still a Liverpool fan.”
Eriksson reveals Liverpool affiliation
It’s amazing that this news has never managed to escape into the general footballing consciousness. Eriksson has been in football since 1964 and yet nobody seemed to know this.
Although he didn’t excel as a player, Sven really came into his own as a manager. His first job was at Swedish third division side Degefors in 1977, with his last a short stint as head coach of the Philippines national team in 2019.
Over that remarkable 43-year career, Eriksson was barely ever without a job. He took charge of 17 different teams, including four national team positions.
His work at club level saw Sven operate in five countries, with his most notable spells coming in Italy. There, he managed four different teams, including both Roma and Lazio.
And yet through all of that, Eriksson’s affiliation with Liverpool was not public knowledge.
Maybe it should have been, though. A little bit of digging shows that an article from The Guardian all the way back in 2010 was the first mention of Sven being a Red.
There, it’s claimed that he kept his fanhood quiet while he was England manager, for kind of obvious reasons. Back in 2020, Eriksson also said that he’d been a Reds fan since he was four or five-years-old.
And now, having been out of the game for a little while and sadly fighting pancreatic cancer, Sven has gone public again. Thoughts are with Sven’s family and friends right now, and hopefully we get to see him at Anfield in the very near future. YNWA Sven-Goran Eriksson.
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