Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has revealed he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has around a year at most to live.
Eriksson, who was England’s first foreign manager from 2001 to 2006, stood down from his most recent role as sporting director at Swedish club Karlstad 11 months ago due to health issues.
According to Sky Sports, the 75-year-old told Swedish radio station P1 he had been given the shock news after fainting on a 5k run, and had previously been in a good state of health.
“Everyone can see that I have a disease that’s not good, and everyone supposes that it’s cancer, and it is. But I have to fight it as long as possible.
“I know that in the best case it’s about a year, in the worst case 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.
“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.
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“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.
“It just came from nothing. And that makes you shocked.
“I’m not in any major pain. But I’ve been diagnosed with a disease that you can slow down but you cannot operate. So it is what it is.”
He first rose to international prominence with Benfica, whom he led to back-to-back league titles in the early 1980s after joining from IFK Gothenberg.
He then managed Roma, Fiorentina and Sampdoria as well as enjoying a second spell in Lisbon before leading Lazio to a domestic double in 2000, in what remains their most-recent Serie A title.
Prior to the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Eriksson was contacted by the NFF after late Shaibu Amodu was sacked as Super Eagles coach following a third-placed finish at the 2010 AFCON in Angola.
The NFF eventually gave the job to Eriksson’s Swedish compatriot Lars Lagerback, who failed to take the team beyond the group stage.
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