Eriksson, Sven Göran life and biography

Sven-Göran Eriksson (born 5 February 1948), in Sweden commonly referred to just by his nickname Svennis, is a Swedish football manager. He is the current manager of Côte d'Ivoire national football team.

Eriksson was a Swedish football player and was forced to retire early from an unremarkable playing career in the Swedish lower leagues, due to injury in 1975. He went on to become a successful club football manager from 1978 to 2001, in the Swedish, Portuguese and Italian top football divisions, most notably with Italian club Lazio. During this time Eriksson achieved several national league, domestic cup and two notable UEFA competition wins. With his achievements in this period, Eriksson is so far the only manager who has achieved the league-and-cup double in three different countries (Sweden, Portugal and Italy).

Management career

Degerfors
After retirement, Eriksson received an offer to become Tord Grip's assistant at Degerfors. A year later, Grip was appointed assistant manager of the Swedish national team, and Eriksson became Degerfors' manager, winning promotion to Division 2 in 1978.

Göteborg
His success with assistant manager Tom Chadney by his side attracted the attention of much larger clubs, and Eriksson joined Göteborg in 1979. He won the Swedish Cup in his first season, and a "treble" of League, Cup and UEFA Cup (Göteborg beating Hamburg 4–0 in the final) in 1982.

Benfica
Eriksson's European success led to him being head-hunted by Portuguese club Benfica, and he had a similarly quick impact there, Benfica winning the Portuguese Championship, the Portuguese Cup and finishing runners-up in the UEFA Cup. After a second Championship the following year, Eriksson moved on to Italy, becoming trainer of Roma.

Roma
He was not as immediately successful at Roma as he had been before, but he still won a Coppa Italia in 1986.

Fiorentina
After a trophyless two years at Fiorentina, Eriksson moved back to Benfica for a second stint in 1989, where he led the Portuguese side to the final of the European Cup (losing to Milan 1–0) in 1990, and another League title in 1991.

Sampdoria
In 1992 Eriksson returned to Italy to try his luck again, with Sampdoria, where he managed to win another Coppa Italia in 1994.

Lazio
In 1997, he agreed to leave Sampdoria at the end of the season to manage Blackburn Rovers. However, later on that year, he went back on his word and opted to stay in Italy and become the new manager at Lazio. Eriksson stated personal family reasons for wanting to stay in Italy. Rovers eventually appointed Roy Hodgson. Eriksson finally found major success in Italy with Lazio when he won the Coppa Italia and the Italian Supercup in 1998 and 2000, the European Cup Winners' Cup (1999 – the very last tournament), and the Serie A title (the Scudetto) in 2000 — only the second time that the Roman club had won the Italian championship in their history. That season had begun with glory in the UEFA Super Cup, winning 1–0 against Manchester United. Bankrolled by Sergio Cragnotti's investment in the team – some £274 million in over 4 seasons – Eriksson amassed trophies on a remarkable scale, and because of this many fans consider him to be Lazio's most successful manager ever.

During his time as England manager Eriksson, who was nicknamed "Sven" by the English, was constantly in the public eye due to various affairs whilst dating his then partner Nancy Dell'Olio. The women with whom he had affairs were famous Swedish television presenter Ulrika Jonsson and his secretary at the Football Association (FA), Faria Alam, who incidentally also had sexual relations with FA chief executive Mark Palios.

Sven was controversially pipped to the prestigious title of "Durex Man of the Year" by Park Chu-Young in 2006.

Manchester City

In July 2007, virtually a year to the day that he left the England job, Eriksson was confirmed as the new manager of Manchester City after signing a three-year contract (Manchester City's first manager from outside of the UK). His first signing was Italian striker Rolando Bianchi from Reggina for £8.8 million. Bianchi was soon joined at the club by Swiss Under-21 international Gelson Fernandes from Sion, Brazilian midfielder Geovanni from Cruzeiro, and Bulgarian winger Martin Petrov from Atlético Madrid. He also signed Croat Vedran Ćorluka from Dinamo Zagreb, Spaniard Javier Garrido from Real Sociedad and Brazilian Elano from Shakhtar Donetsk. He was successful in his first match, defeating West Ham United 2–0 at Upton Park. During Manchester City's next game, they scored their first home goal in 288 days (since 1 January 2007), to take all three points from a newly promoted Derby County.

On 19 August, Manchester City won the first Manchester derby under Eriksson with a 1–0 win over league champions Manchester United with a goal from one of Sven's summer signings, Geovanni, taking City to the top of the Premier League, with 9 points and having conceded no goals. Manchester City lost their first match on 25 August, a 1–0 loss to Arsenal. On 10 February 2008, Eriksson's Manchester City once again beat Manchester United, this time at Old Trafford, beating them 2–1.

Guiding Manchester City to second place in the Premier League, Eriksson earned himself the Premier League's Manager of the Month award for August. During September 2007, City enjoyed a further two wins at home, whilst winning one point in two matches playing away from home. Meanwhile, Eriksson led the club to the fourth round of the Carling Cup, beating Norwich City at Eastlands by 1–0.

In the last game of the season, Manchester City suffered an 8–1 loss to Middlesbrough F.C.; the biggest defeat of Eriksson's career, leaving Manchester City in 9th place in the league, one place away from the UEFA Cup 2008–09 qualifying positions. Manchester City subsequently qualified through the extra place awarded to the Premier League for finishing as the highest placed team (who hadn't already qualified for a European competition) in the UEFA Fair Play League for 2007–08.

Eriksson became the first Manchester City manager since 1969–70 to win both league derby games against Manchester United and also achieved the joint highest Premier League point total in the club's history.

Mexico national football team

On 2 June 2008, Manchester City confirmed by club statement that they had parted company with Eriksson by "mutual consent", with Eriksson still having two years left on his contract. He was subsequently appointed as manager of Mexico a day later, though he did not formally start the role until after Mexico's World Cup qualifier against Belize on 21 June.

On 20 August 2008, he debuted as manager of the Mexican National team in a CONCACAF world cup qualifier versus Honduras. Mexico went on to win 2–1. On the next matches some results were poor, as Mexico tied with Canada and lost to Jamaica and Honduras.

On 11 February 2009, Eriksson was put under further pressure as his side lost 2–0 to the United States. Calls for him to quit or be sacked were heard from the fans while the English club Portsmouth were rumoured to be interested in making him their new manager. This link was strengthened by reports of members from the Portsmouth board flying to Mexico City to discuss contract offers with Eriksson and a possible compensation settlement with the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación. In early March, Eriksson continued to deny that he would leave Mexico and return to manage Portsmouth, insisting that he would remain and help Mexico qualify for the World Cup. After a 3–1 World Cup Qualifying loss at Honduras, Eriksson was removed as national team coach. Eriksson had only won one of his last seven non-friendly games as manager.

Notts County

Eriksson was Director of Football at English League Two team Notts County from July 2009 to February 2010, attracted by a Middle East consortium which claimed to seek to take the club to the top of the Premiership. On 21 July 2009, sources disclosed that Eriksson was in talks with Notts County, following that club's takeover by Middle East consortium Munto Finance. On 22 July the deal was finalised, with Sven getting a reported, but not confirmed, £2m a year deal. It is believed his contract was based on the future success of the club with a large percentage share holding making up his contract. Eriksson later said that he was attracted by the consortium's plans to take the world's oldest league club to the top of the Premiership, and believed that they had the finance and commitment to do that. Large-scale investment in new facilities was promised, and Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel joined the club from Premiership teams. Campbell, however, played only one game. The consortium attempted to involve Eriksson in the running of the North Korean team, taking him to Pyongyang in October 2009; this came to nothing, with Eriksson later saying that his efforts were wasted as he was then unable to contact anyone on the North Korean side. In November 2009 the club's large debts, including an unpaid tax bill, emerged. On 11 February 2010, Eriksson resigned as director of football following the club's takeover by former Lincoln City chairman Ray Trew. Eriksson waived a multi-million payoff in order to assist the takeover; Trew described Eriksson as an "absolute gentleman".

Côte d'Ivoire national team

He is selected to lead the Côte d'Ivoire national team during the 2010 World Cup. On 28 March 2010 he was announced manager of Côte d'Ivoire national football team.