ROMA. He’s dead Sven-Goran Eriksson. The BBC announced: “Terribly sad news has reached us: Sven-Goran Eriksson has died at the age of 76. The former England manager died this morning at his home surrounded by his loved ones,” writes the English public broadcaster.
Eriksson, who coached in Italy Lazio, Sampdoria, Fiorentina e Romaa few months ago he announced that he was suffering from an incurable tumor.
Eriksson was England’s first foreign coach, thus inextricably linking his figure to British football. He arrived in Italy in the mid-80s at Roma, after his experience on the bench of Benfica in Portugal. Then the benches of Fiorentina and Sampdoria. With Lazio he won the Scudetto in the 1999-2000 season. Then he traveled the world from Arabia to China, to Thailand. He coached several national teams: after his experience with England, he led Ivory Coast, Mexico and the Philippines.
In January, he revealed that he was battling terminal cancer, saying that he had, at best, “a year to live.” Since that announcement, Eriksson has been a guest at some of the clubs he has coached around Europe. In Italy, he was welcomed to the stadium by Lazio and Sampdoria. In England, he realized a dream: sitting on the Liverpool bench during a match organized between the club’s legends and Ajax. “Don’t be sorry. Smile.” This is one of the coach’s last messages during a documentary dedicated to him that Amazon published in recent weeks.
“Thank you for everything: coaches, players, fans. It was great. Take care of yourself, take care of your life and live it. Until the end,” he added. “I had a good life, yes,” Eriksson admitted. “I think we all fear the day we die. But life is also about death. You have to learn to accept it, for what it is. Hopefully in the end people will say: ‘Yes, he was a good man.’ But not everyone will say that. I hope they will remember me as a positive man.”
2024-08-26 21:23:37