|
Sven-Goran Eriksson is enjoying the life as Mexico's
coach
The 60-year-old Swede brings his team to the Coliseum for a match against
Chile on Wednesday night.
By Grahame L. Jones, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
| |
|
|
Sven-Goran Eriksson, the Swedish coach
of the Mexican national soccer team, walks between television cameras
Tuesday after a news conference in Los Angeles. Eriksson says coaching
Mexican players, many of whom play their club ball in Europe, hasn't
been markedly different from his previous job coaching the English
national team.
(Kevork Djansezian / AP)
September 23, 2008
|
Sven-Goran Eriksson made his Los Angeles debut today and
it was not without its lighter moments.
Near the end of a news conference at the downtown hotel where the 60-year-old
Swedish coach and his Mexican national soccer team are staying, Eriksson
was asked by a female television reporter what he thought of chili.
Since Mexico is playing Chile on Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Coliseum,
Eriksson started talking about Santiago.
The television reporter laughed and said no, she meant the food, not the
country.
It might have been a set-up, but Eriksson took the joke well and afterward
made a point of meeting and shaking hands with the reporter, the only
one of four dozen writers and photographers in the room so honored.
Eriksson is little more than three months into the job he inherited when
Hugo Sanchez was ousted for failing to qualify Mexico for the Beijing
Olympics. It's a job that pays him a reported $5 million a year after
taxes.
He has used the time well and, unlike former U.S. coach Bruce Arena and
current U.S. Coach Bob Bradley, he has become fluent in Spanish -- chili
and Chile notwithstanding.
"If you want to learn a language, you have to study, and I study
one to two hours every day when I'm in Mexico City," he said.
"But I'm cheating a little bit because I know Italian well and I
know Portuguese OK, so when I speak Spanish there is a lot of Italian
and Portuguese in it, but the important thing is that the players understand
me, and I will be better in the future."
So far, Eriksson, who coached England for more than five years and led
it to the World Cup in 2002 and 2006, is on course to take Mexico to the
next world championship, in South Africa in 2010. "El Tri" is
unbeaten in three qualifying games with him at the helm.
"I've been extremely happy," he said. "I'm enjoying the
job. Three games, three wins, so it's easy to enjoy it. I enjoy living
in Mexico City. I'd never been to Mexico before I came in June or July
and I don't like it, I love it. It's a nice life. It's a nice city with
extremely nice people."
Eriksson said he did not have to approach Mexico's national team players
any differently than he had England's squad.
"Football today is very universal," he said. "Many years
ago, I don't think it was like that. But now Mexico has 14 or 15 players
playing in Europe, and when they play for Barcelona or they play for Stuttgart
or for PSV Eindhoven or for whoever it is, do they play Mexican football
or do they play worldwide football?
"I don't think it's that different. Of course, I think it's important
for me and the rest of the coaches that we try to build on what Mexico
is good at -- and that's technique. Mexican football is technically very
good, with a lot of speed, and we try to use that as much as possible.
"But to train a team one way in Mexico and another way in England
and another way in Italy, no. I don't think so. I think you can use the
same methods and the same ideas wherever you go."
Eriksson also said the passion of Mexico's fans is every bit as intense
as that of the English.
"I think you have maybe three national teams in the world that bring
a lot of fans wherever they go, playing at home or playing away. Those
three are Mexico, England and Brazil. So there are a lot of similarities
in that way."
When Eriksson was appointed to the job by the Mexican soccer federation,
there were some, including a few national team veterans, who criticized
the move, saying that the Swede had no understanding of the Mexican mentality
or Mexican culture.
"When I first came to England there were a lot of critics, saying
I didn't know anything about English football and that an Englishman should
be the coach of England," Eriksson said. "But as I said before,
football today is universal."
As for culture, Eriksson said he had been spending some time in Mexico
City's anthropological museums, learning about the Mayans and such.
"It has nothing to do with football," he said, "but it
was very interesting."
Eriksson was asked what he thought Mexico might be missing that has prevented
it from joining the ranks of the world's elite national teams. Currently,
Mexico is ranked 24th by FIFA, four places ahead of the U.S.
"It's difficult to say," he replied. "I think in the future
we will compete with all the best teams in the world. Who is the best?
I don't know. But you're talking about two South American teams, Brazil
and Argentina, and you're talking about four, five, up to six, European
teams, which are among the best in the world.
"I hope and I think we can compete with them in the next World Cup.
First of all, we have to qualify, of course.
"We have a mixture of old players who still can play in the World
Cup in South Africa. And we have some very young and very talented football
players. So I hope we can do better.
"I wouldn't say we're missing anything. I don't know. I will tell
you when we start to meet some of the most famous teams in the world."
Mexico's World Cup qualifying campaign resumes in October when it plays
Jamaica in Kingston and Canada in Edmonton, having already beaten both
of those teams in Mexico.
Los Angeles
Times, September 23, 2008
|
|
