TAKE a talented Swede, stir him around in the very thick of top-class southern European soccer for 15 years and you ought to get someone capable of leading a side to Premiership success in England.
That would seem to be the rationale behind Blackburn Rovers' decision to hire Sven Goran Eriksson as their new manager - at a £1 million per season salary - starting as of next July. We do not know if the Blackburn reasoning will prove correct but we can say that the club have hired an unusual figure in the world of soccer, a nice guy and gentleman who is also a winner.
Although Eriksson feels that it is not yet appropriate for him to talk about his new job while he still has a half season to see out with his current club, Italian side Sampdoria, he is no doubt looking forward to the new job with enthusiasm.
Even if Eriksson does not Want to speak, there are those who can talk for him. Take the legendary Nils Liedholm, former AC Milan and Sweden star of the '50s and also coach of the 1983 Italian title winners, AS Roma. Liedholm once said of his compatriot, Eriksson: "For someone who never played soccer at the top, he is an amazingly successful coach."
Do not be fooled by 48-year-old Eriksson's cosmopolitan ways, however, or by his excellent command of English, Italian and Portuguese, nor by his obvious affability. The new Blackburn manager is also a motivator who has picked up one Swedish title with IFK Gothenburg in 1981 and three in Portugal with Benfica in 1984, '85 and '91.
When injury and limited talent cut short his playing career, the 27-year-old Eriksson hardly made the front page of Gazzetta Dello Sport when taking the manager's job at third division part-timers Degerfors, back in 1975. Yet, he proved immediately successful, leading the side into the second and first divisions in successive seasons.
Furthermore, newly prompted Degerfors finished second in Division One at the first time of asking. That performance was enough to win Eriksson a contract with Sweden's most famous club, Gothenburg, where in four subsequent seasons he won one title, finished second twice and third on the other occasion.
Curiously, it was an obscure Englishman called Roy Hodgson who robbed him of a second title in 1980 when Gothenburg were held to a 1-1 home draw in a title decider against Hodgson's Halmstaad. The paths of these two migrant-worker managers did not cross again until this autumn when both of them attracted Blackburn's interest as a possible future coach.
Hodgson, of course, said "no, thank you" to Blackburn, while Eriksson took the job. As fans of Internazionale threw oranges and shouted abuse at him at the San Siro stadium on Sunday following Inter's 3-4 home defeat by Sampdoria, Hodgson may have wondered if he had made the right move. These days, of course, Hodgson is the Inter coach while Sampdoria are managed by, yes, Sven Eriksson.
Sampdoria, of course, represent Eriksson's second coming in Italian soccer. After his successful spell with Gothenburg, he first moved to Benfica where he again hit the target, winning two championships in two seasons.
Then followed an exciting spell with AS Roma where he came within a whisker of winning the laurels from under the nose of Michel Platini's Juventus. Two relatively modest seasons with Fiorentina were the prelude to a second three-year spell with Benfica
Back in Italy at Sampdoria since 1992, Eriksson has never quite regained the heights touched during his first period with Roma, especially during that breathtaking second season when the talents of such as Pole Zbigniew Boniek, Brazilian Cerezo and striker Roberto Pruzzo saw his side playing an attacking, hard running soccer that pre-dated Arrigo Sacchi's all successful AC Milan by two years.
In theory, Eriksson should have little difficulty adapting to English soccer. Not only is he a northern European, but he is also a flexible coach, someone whose attachment to "zonal" rather than "man-to-man" soccer is not a dogma. Importantly, too, he is also a diplomatic "manhandler."
"The important thing in today's soccer," he says, "is not the tactical lineout but rather that your players are aggressive and want to play... There are no rigid tactical choices that you must always follow."
When he left Fiorentina to return to Benfica in 1989, Eriksson talked about making a lifestyle choice, saying that he was looking forward to living again in his seaside villa near Cascais, on Portugal's Atlantic coast. If things do not work out at Blackburn, he still has the villa as a haven.
It is, incidentally, entirely in keeping with Eriksson's style that he intends to see out his current contract with Sampdoria and will not join Blacburn until next July. One small question remains - will struggling Blackburn still be a Premiership side, by then?
