Swedish football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who became the first foreigner to lead the England national team, died on Monday at the age of 76.
Eriksson, a charismatic coach who led Swedish, Portuguese and Italian clubs to major trophies in the 1980s and 1990s before taking on the England job in 2001, announced in January that he was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer.
Eriksson’s long-time agent Bo Gustavsson said Eriksson had lost his battle with cancer early on Monday, surrounded by his family.
“We knew it was going to end bad, it all went really fast in the last few weeks,” Gustavsson told Reuters.
“I have been fascinated by him for a long time, he has always been so positive and has had time for others and never thought of himself, and he was that until the very end,” the agent added.
Swedish football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who became the first foreigner to lead the England national team, died on Monday at the age of 76.
Eriksson, a charismatic coach who led Swedish, Portuguese and Italian clubs to major trophies in the 1980s and 1990s before taking on the England job in 2001, announced in January that he was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer.
Eriksson’s long-time agent Bo Gustavsson said Eriksson had lost his battle with cancer early on Monday, surrounded by his family.
“We knew it was going to end bad, it all went really fast in the last few weeks,” Gustavsson told Reuters.
“I have been fascinated by him for a long time, he has always been so positive and has had time for others and never thought of himself, and he was that until the very end,” the agent added.
Eriksson led England to the quarterfinals of the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, and to the 2004 European Championship, managing a golden generation of players, including David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard.
Eriksson will be remembered for his significant work with the England team, and for his wider contribution to the game, FA CEO Mark Bullingham said.
“On behalf of my colleagues at the FA, past and present, our thoughts are with his friends and family today. He will be much missed, and we will pay tribute to him when we play Finland at Wembley next month,” Bullingham wrote on X.
In his native Sweden, where he is known simply as “Svennis”, Eriksson was praised as a great sports leader.
“Svennis was a soccer innovator and a very popular person who maintained his core values despite all his international success,” Sweden’s minister of social affairs Jakob Forssmed said in a post on social media X.
Eriksson first gained international recognition by guiding Swedish club IFK Gothenburg to the Uefa Cup title in 1982, and went on to a successful career at Portugal’s Benfica and Italian clubs Roma, Fiorentina, Lazio and Sampdoria.
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