Trouble with tackle

The problem that the manager of the English football team faces is a stark and brutal one: in a game traditionally composed of two halves, it can't be easy being only the first half of a Svengali. There are other problems that beset the Swede. How, for example, does it feel to go through life looking like the kindly younger brother of Norman Tebbit? What must it be like to have dumped in one's lap, as it were, the reputation of being something of a love god, when you appear to be the bloke who has just been turned down for the star role in an advert for the local opticians. These are some of the questions, and we were looking for some answers, from Seven Days That Shook Sven (C4).

There weren't many answers as far as I was concerned, but the programme proved to be more a bubble bath than a soap opera, a subject that I will be returning to tomorrow when it falls to me to lift the lid on the homoerotic possibilities of the relationship between Sven Goran Eriksson and David Nathaniel Erasmus Beckham. It appears that Sven was never the most popular manager in the world, despite the fact that he has a reputation for excellence in several languages.

Even before he aspired to the condition of manager, he was a seriously second-rate footballer. Let's face it, playing right-back is the easiest position on the pitch, given the fact that there are only around three decent left-wingers in the world. The man who spotted that Sven used not only his left peg but also his right just for the purpose of staying upright was Tord Grip, who, if I may be allowed to mix my extremities, is now Sven's righthand man in charge of finding a decent left-winger. In dismal times such as those we are in at the moment, it is nothing less than a ray of light that Sven and Tord have been reunited to guide the fortunes of the English football team. Like many others, I swallowed that old story that Jesus saves, but Keegan taps in the rebound. When it became clear that Keegan had clipped off more than he could chew, we were pleased to see Sven come smiling around the corner with a haircut that made us all feel unthreatened.

Yet the fact is that Sven's old incompetence as a right-back has come back to haunt him. He keeps flying into situations with his studs showing. There is absolutely nothing wrong in having Nancy Olive Oil as a girlfriend, other than the fact that this "fiery and hotblooded" woman - someone else's words, not mine - is a natural Right-winger. When they met, and she was married to one of Sven's bosses at the time, "sparks flew", which is as intriguing an example of the mysteries of physics as I've ever come across. As a natural, though not particularly gifted, right-back, Sven could not conceivably have been prepared for this. Which is presumably why he took up, albeit briefly, with the more left-leaning Ulrika Jonsson, who was more open to his sliding tackle.

The longer this charming little documentary went on, the more inclined I was to ring up Sven and offer him the use of my spare bedroom. It simply hasn't gone well for the fellow over the years. It is hard to imagine anyone less well suited to managing Roma, for example. When his stewardship failed to secure the Italian premiership - all the rest of the clubs in the league except for the one at the bottom having decided to hand it to them - Sven was booted out of Rome. Ten years later, or something like it, he came back to manage Lazio. They didn't exactly conquer the world, either. Can you imagine having both warring factions of Rome against you?

I suppose the reason Sven ended up here, apart from having a great PR team, is that he has long been an admirer of the English game. When all hope for an interesting and imaginative future has been extinguished, we will have to take solace in the fact that there are a couple of Scandinavians who will always insist that the Liverpool team of the 1980s was the best aggregation ever. Sven is one of these two Scandinavians. He would bring back Tommy Smith in the twinkling of an eye, and insist that he was always a finer player and better looking than Bobby Moore.

It would have taken a rare curmudgeon to have come away from this delightful, if somewhat defensively fragile, portrait of a fine man with anything other than a scissors-kick of the emotions. When one considers the England managers of the past, we are blessed with this man who could get up on stage at SingalongaAbba and be hailed as an original member. Did Alf Ramsey have exotic girlfriends? Did Don Revie speak Italian? Does Bobby Robson speak English? Sven Goran Eriksson, we love you dearly. Failures attract. We will go down together.