Former football coach Sven-Goran Erikson has announced that he has pancreatic cancer and has less than a year to live. The Swede said on his country's P1 radio that doctors diagnosed him with this disease after he suddenly lost consciousness.
In February of last year he already said that he was reducing his public appearances due to health problems. "Everyone understands that I have a disease that is not good, and everyone assumes it is cancer, and it is," she said during Thursday's interview.
Eriksson explained that the pancreatic cancer he suffers from is inoperable. "At best, I might have a year to live at most, at worst, maybe a little less." Despite the bad news, at 75 years old he tries not to be negative. "I could be thinking about it all the time, staying home, being in a bad mood and thinking I'm unlucky and so on," he said. However, he believes that "that's the easy part." "No, you have to have a positive outlook and not wallow in adversity. Because this is, of course, the biggest setback."
Eriksson will be remembered for being the first England coach (the birthplace of football) born abroad (2001 and 2006). Eriksson led the considered golden generation of English footballers of this century, such as David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney, in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, although his achievements were the quarterfinals in both tournaments. The same thing happened to him in the 2004 Euro Cup.
He achieved fame by winning league titles at club level in the eighties and nineties, especially with Lazio in Italy, Benfica in Portugal and at the beginning of his career as a coach - his playing career was very discreet - at IFK Göteborg, in his native Sweden, a club with which he won a UEFA Cup. A football globetrotter, in total he coached in seven countries, in many of them as a coach, in a long career on the bench that began in the late seventies. As an anecdote, he was the last coach of Manchester City before the arrival of petrodollars from Abu Dhabi.
Svennis' last stint as coach was as national coach of the Philippines for two years (2018 and 2019). At the club level, he was in various Chinese football teams in previous years. His other destinations were Mexico, Ivory Coast and Thailand. Most recently he held the position of sporting director of Karlstad, a team in the Swedish third division.
