The 378-paged memoir titled MY STORY by Sven-Goran Eriksson is one of the books I picked from the bookstand during my latest trip to South Africa. Eriksson was assisted in the writing by Stefan Lovgren, an award-winning Swedish journalist who also translated the text from Swedish into English.
As a biographer, newsman and a passionate lover of football, I couldn't miss this sizzling memoirs. Without wasting your time, let us go straight to the chapter on Africa, which has the story of Sven's Nigerian nightmare – with a hint of corruption in high places:
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In the summer of 2010, the World Cup was to be played in Africa for the first time, in South Africa to be exact. I was still disappointed that I would not be taking Mexico there. This would be the first World Cup without me since 1998. I was also out of a job after the whole Notts County affair. That is when Athole called me with a new assignment—manager of Nigeria's national team. Nigeria was one of the five African teams to qualify for the World Cup. Maybe I would still be part of the tournament after all?
I had long been curious about African football. I remember how impressed I had been watching Nigeria almost knock out Italy in 1994. Two years later, Nigeria won the Olympics. During the past ten to fifteen years, Africa players had flocked to Europe and many had established themselves at the highest level in the European leagues. No African team had managed to get beyond the quarter-finals in a World Cup. Perhaps it was time for one of them to take that next step?
But many problems plagued African football. Economic resources were lacking at the grassroots and elite levels. Corruption was said to be widespread and planning often non-existent. After they lost the semi-final of the African Cup of Nations, the Nigerian FA had sacked the team coach, despite just four months remaining before the World Cup, in order to bring in a European replacement. Like many other African countries, Nigeria did not trust the domestic coaches.
I flew to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to meet the Nigerian FA and, I thought, negotiate the job as Nigeria manager. I knew the Nigerians had also shown some interest in the coach of the Egyptian national team, but I assumed the job was mine if I wanted it. I should not have made that assumption.
We met at Hilton Hotel in Abuja. In the meeting room, perhaps ten people were sitting, as if on a panel, behind a table. Right away, they started asking stupid questions. Which formation was I planning to play? Why was I the right man for the job? How could I help Nigeria win the World Cup? This was no negotiation, it was an interview. I had been around in the football business for too long to have to sit there and be interviewed about a job, especially by people who did not know anything about football. It was also clear that they had done no research about me or my background. All they knew was that I had been in England.
After the meeting, an agent whom Athole worked with locally explained that half of my salary would be deposited into a special bank account. It was not too hard to figure out that the special bank account would involve someone else taking a piece of my pie if I got the job. There was no way I would agree to that. I never received an offer of a contract, and it was just as well. Not long after that, Lasse Lagerback, the former Sweden manager, was appointed manager of Nigeria. When I met Lasse later, I asked him if he had also been 'interviewed' by the Nigerian Football Association. He had.
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I thought that I had passed up the only chance I would get to go to the World Cup, but back in London Athole called me about another job, again in Africa—manager of the Ivory Coast national team. Ivory Coast had also sacked their manager after the African Cup of Nations, where the team was knocked out in the quarter-finals. Ivory Coast was regarded as the best team in Africa. They had easily qualified for the World Cup and had such superstars as Didier Drogba and the brothers Yaya and Kolo Toure. I was very interested in the job.
I met the president and vice-president of Ivory Coast FA in connection with a friendly the country was playing at Queens Park Rangers' stadium in London. Things were much more straightforward with them than with the Nigerians. I felt immediately that I was dealing with real football people. I think Johan's partner in the Abidjan academy had also put in a good word for me. The day after the friendly, we met again at a hotel in London and I signed a contract to manage Ivory Coast until the end of the World Cup. I was given a salary of 100,000 euros per month, plus bonuses if we advanced in the tournament.
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I knew it was going to be tough. Ivory Coast had been drawn in what was dubbed 'the group of death.' We were going to play five-times world champions Brazil, as well as the semi-finalists from 2006 World Cup, Portugal. The fourth team in the group was North Korea. Apparently, their plan to fix the World Cup draw had backfired.
Despite the tricky draw, expectations were high in the Ivory Coast. Football, I would quickly come to realis se, meant the world to people in the country. In 2006, Ivory Coast had qualified for the World Cup for the first time. The year before, the civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south had split the country into two halves. The combatants, it was said, had called for a truce when the national team had played its World Cup qualifying games. How true that was, I don't know. The war was over now, but there was still a lot of tension between north and south. In football though, the country was united.
