da bwin：
da aviator aposta： Sven-Goran Eriksson is one of the most decorated manages in European football. With over 30 years of experience at fourteen different clubs and countries, he has amassed 17 major trophies across the continent and was the first person to win the league-and-cup double in three different countries.
As early as the 1980’s he was winning trophies. Guiding IFK Goteborg to the Swedish Cup in his first full season and completing a league, cup and UEFA Cup treble in 1982. He continued his success at Benfica, winning two titles and the Portuguese Cup in two seasons and during four years at Lazio he won Coppa Italia and Italian Super Cup twice, the Cup Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and Serie A, only Lazio’s second Scudetto.
He has managed at some of the biggest clubs and his reign as England manager was consistent and competitive, a vast improvement on the current set up. But in recent years the cool, calm and collected Swede looks to have become complacent and laissez-faire to the game.
Since June 2008 he has been with four clubs as manager or director of football and has been relatively unsuccessful. And after being sacked by moneybags Leicester City following an unimpressive start for the promotion favourites, Sven’s passion for the game must come into question.
The start of this decline in interest can be pinpointed to Spring 2008 when former City owner Thaksin Shinawatra confirmed he would be getting rid of Eriksson after just one season at the club due to some poor results. Despite protests from the fans and the prospect of a strike, the former Thai PM could not be dissuaded and following an 8-1 humiliation by Middlesbrough, the Swede departed the club, even though he had beaten Manchester United twice that season and guided City to their biggest Premier League points total at that time.
With that decision, he seemed to lose all interest in the game and from then appeared to give up on the tradition of trophy chasing in football. After that apparent lack of respect from City chiefs, Sven has seemingly been on a mission to create a footballing legacy, taking on projects rather than management jobs.
[ad_pod id=’unruly-2′ align=’left’]
His first port of call was the Mexico national team, who he hoped to turn into a North American superpower, where he battled rumours of division within the squad and the wrath of the fans who were upset by his appointment. In seven competitive matches he won only once, with a draw against Canada being followed by losses to Jamaica, USA and Honduras on two occasions which ultimately cost him his job after less than a year.
Even more strangely, after a “takeover” of League Two Notts County in the summer of 2009 by Munto Finance, the Swede arrived through the doors of Meadow Lane as Director of Football. He, like everybody else, had been made to believe that the world’s oldest League club had received major investment that would see them rise from the football league’s bottom tier to the Premiership in five years and wanted to be at the head of that process. Although they were promoted at the end of the season, Sven had resigned in February 2010 after it emerged that the club had large debts and an unpaid tax bill because the owners were not what they had claimed.
After waiving the right to a multi-million pound pay off to secure the Magpie’s future, he was appointed manager of the Ivory Coast for the 2010 World Cup. With stars like Didier Drogba and the Toure brothers, Sven was hoping to make Pele’s comments come true and get an African team to the World Cup semi-finals for the first time. This has probably been his biggest success in recent years, having brought organisation and balance to a team full of flair and had it not been for being grouped with Brazil and Portugal his side may well have progressed.
Finally, last October he was brought to the Walkers Stadium by Thai-led consortium Asian Football Investments, with the task of saving them from relegation and turning them into title winners. He was able to complete the first part of the plan, guiding them to the brink of the play-offs before falling away at the end of the season. But having spent huge sums of money over the summer on Matt Mills and Jermaine Beckford among others, he was unable to live up to expectations and left with the club 13th in the table.
These recent jobs make Sven look like an owner of the game Football Manager, trying to take his team from underdogs to the dominant force. But so far, all his efforts have been in vain.
It is a sorry sight that somebody so successful is now looking for jobs outside the top flight to reignite his interest in the game.
Is Sven bored or do you have another opinion? Leave a comment or follow me on Twitter @jrobbins1991.
[divider] FREE football app that pays you to view ads [ad_pod id=’qs-2′ align=’left’]