Former England football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson has revealed that he has been sadly diagnosed with terminal cancer and only has “at best a year to live”.
The 75-year-old ex-Premier League and EFL coach confirmed his devastating news during an interview on Swedish radio earlier this week.
He is, of course, best known to football fans around the world as the Three Lions boss between 2001-2006, where he took charge of the so-called ‘Golden Generation’ of English footballers at the time, including Beckham, Owen, Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, and many more.
Eriksson led the star-studded national team to two World Cup tournaments during his reign, as well as EURO 2004 when England suffered a heartbreaking and controversial loss to Portugal on penalties.
Aside from his England duties, Eriksson has also managed a number of other notable clubs throughout his career, including Manchester City, Leicester, Benfica and Lazio, as well as sides in Sweden, China, the Phillippines and the Ivory Coast national team.
Many fans grew concerned after Eriksson resigned as the Sporting Director at Swedish club, Karlstad Football, 11 months ago now.
News reports simply cited “health issues” at the time and now it appears the nature of the problem was much more serious than first thought, having now been unfortunately diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
“Everyone understands that I have an illness that is not good. “Everyone guesses it’s cancer and it is – but I have to fight as long as I can.”, he told Swedish radio station Sveriges Radio P1 during a candid interview.
When asked more about the condition, Eriksson did not disclose which type of cancer he has been diagnosed with, but he did unfortunately reveal he only has “at best a year” to live, and “at worst, even less”.
“Or in the best case, I suppose even longer. I don’t think the doctors I have can be totally sure, they can’t put a day on it,… [so] it’s better not to think about it.
“You have to trick your brain.
“I could go around thinking about that all the time and sit at home and be miserable and think I’m unlucky and so on. It’s easy to end up in that position. But no, see the positive sides of things and don’t bury yourself in setbacks, because this is the biggest setback of them all of course.”
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Featured Images — Vinod Divakaran/Manchester City/Wikimedia Commons
