Forget truth, show me the money! (Sven Goran Eriksson)

Member Name: litefoot

Product:	Sven Goran Eriksson
Date:	26/01/06 (411 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: England's golden age under Sven

Disadvantages: Media attention directed towards the wrong things

The England manager. Have there been any jobs that come under more intense scrutiny than this one? Although the job is well paid (millions of pounds), it has become something of a poisoned chalice, with the incumbent under pressure for constant victories (whoever the opponents) and their lives subject to exhaustive examination by the press. Any word or action that is viewed negatively can result in a baffling amount of mass media coverage.

Sven Goran Eriksson seems to have endured more column inches in the newspapers than any other England manager. Now Sven has announced his departure from the job after World Cup 2006, and it will probably come as a relief to him that he doesn't have to endure such circumstances anymore. Unfortunately it might not be good for England when he leaves as his fantastic record in England games will be hard to beat.

Under Sven, England win far more games than they lose (see below). I believe the England team is truly revelling in a golden age now, but far from praising the manager, all the newspapers seem to be interested in is making money out of him.

Some people have said that the newspapers are trying to force Eriksson out. This isn't true. What they are in fact trying to do is make lots and lots of money and they are succeeding. All the stories that are published about him usually get a lot of attention from the rest of the media rather than fade away, and the newspapers recognise that. Sven = ££££££. Hence you have The News of the World and their little tricks. It's not about truth, but money. So lots of papers are sold as the story grows and grows (note how The News of the World held back more 'revelations' until the following week. Hey presto, more sales!). And while that is great for the company who owns the paper, it isn't so great for Sven and the England team.

I really couldn't care less what Sven has been doing outside managing the England team. What matters is COMPETITIVE FOOTBALL. And his record in that is the best it has been since the time of Alf Ramsey, 30 years ago. Bobby Robson and Terry Venables did well in their respective eras but their England results cannot compare with Sven's. So let's forget the words 'Ulrika' 'Faria' 'Chelsea' and 'Sheikh' because they have no bearing whatsoever on his work with the England team.

At a time when the entire country should be firmly behind their team and manager, we have newspapers trying to trap Eriksson into errors willy nilly, to get more sales.

But all that is irrelevant - or should be! If we want to judge Sven properly, as a manager, we should be looking at his England stats. Here is Sven's record in the last two qualifying campaigns, with England listed first to make for easier reading:

Euro 2004 Qualifying

WIN England 2-1 Slovakia
DRAW England 2-2 Macedonia
WIN England 2-0 Liectenstein
WIN England 2-0 Turkey
WIN England 2-1 Slovakia
WIN England 2-1 Macedonia
WIN England 2-0 Liectenstein
DRAW England 0-0 Turkey


World Cup 2006 Qualifying

DRAW England 2-2 Austria
WIN England 2-1 Poland
WIN England 1-0 Azerbaijan
WIN England 2-0 Wales
WIN England 4-0 Northern Ireland
WIN England 1-0 Wales
WIN England 2-0 Azerbaijan
LOSS England 0-1 Northern Ireland
WIN England 1-0 Austria
WIN England 2-1 Poland

A perfectly reasonable run don't you think? Only one loss in 18 games. England are unbeaten in competitive games at home since October 2000, for goodness sake! I should also mention the England 5-1 Germany qualifier game in 2001 which was a fantastic game for England. These two lists tell you one thing - when the chips are down, England always delivers in qualifying under Sven. Qualifying always forms the main part of a manager's international career - they run for two years while tournaments only run for three weeks - and Sven's record in qualifying is impeccable.

*Everyone* is this country needs to start looking at the bigger picture - that is, Sven has provided us with two comfortable qualifying campaigns and only one loss. When was the last time an England manager achieved that?


Now let's look at England's performances in the tournaments themselves:

World Cup 2002

DRAW England 1-1 Sweden
WIN England 1-0 Argentina
DRAW England 0-0 Nigeria
WIN England 3-0 Denmark
LOSS England 1-2 Brazil (quarter final knockout)

Euro 2004

LOSS England 1-2 France
WIN England 3-0 Switzerland
WIN England 4-2 Croatia
LOSS England 2-2 Portugal (quarter final knock out, England lost on penaties)

Although there have been some great performances at these tournaments, this is really the only meaningful aspect of Sven's time that stumbles. In both final games at these tournaments, Sven has been criticised for not taking the game by the scruff of the neck. Against 10 man Brazil, England offered little threat, and after scoring early on against Portugal, were penned in their own half for most of the game and showed little attacking intent.

He seems to let the players get on with it themselves in these games and when he should have been screaming and urging the players forward against Portugal, he did little, except make odd substitutions (e.g. when Rooney was injured, he should have put on Heskey, a better partner for Owen, instead of Vassell).

I think that come June, Sven will have learnt from this and show a little more nous in getting the team to do what he wants them to. I suspect that rather than play the eleven best players in every starting line up, he will also keep an ace up his sleeve, which he can play towards the end of games if things aren't going well. For example, the recent game against Argentina, where England were losing 2-1 and Joe Cole/Peter Crouch came on near the end and changed the pattern of the game. In June expect Sven to have a holding player to assist Gerrard and Lampard, with Cole waiting on the bench if he's needed.

OK, now lets get on to the friendlies record. There've been about thirty of those since Sven's career began and I won't bore you by listing every single result, but the Win Lose Draw sequence runs thus:

WWLDDLWDDDLWWWLDLDWWLDWWLW

That's twenty-six friendlies in all, and admittedly, compared to his competitive games, the record is poor: 11 wins, eight draws and seven losses. But think about what these games are for a moment. Every football season for club and country has a packed schedule, and so many games can puts a tremendous strain on the players (even if they are paid millions of pounds, they're only human). It's not surprising if they drop the intensity levels for a game against, say, Sweden if the players have big club games three days later. So for all the backlash there might be about losses against the likes of Australia, it doesn't matter one jot in terms of competitive games (yes, it does affect the country rankings, but how seriously can you take a system that has the USA and Mexico in the top 10 countries). These games shouldn't even be factored into the manager's CV (although it's always good to see England win, especially morale boosting ones like the Argentina game in 2005).


As someone said in an earlier review, we don't know what we've got until it's gone, and by the time the next manager has been in the job a while, I suspect people will start wishing Sven had never left. It's going to be interesting to see what happens if England win the World Cup in June, isn't it?

Summary: Harsh treatment of the England manager is unnecessary and harmful