Will the Sly Swede make it to Germany?

[Louis VI the Fat]

That'll be Sven Göran Eriksson , manager of the England football team. He got himself into a little bit of trouble...


So...will the Sly Swede be out of a job soon? Should he resign or stay on?

[matteus the inbred]

he should stay on for a while, because the alternative is Steve '7-0 defeats don't worry me' McLaren. he's guilty of being naive, but people in football often seem to suffer from this when confronted by badly disguised tabloid reporters.
regardless of what he said (and none of it was very surprising or even deniable), he's still a decent coach and the team just needs consistency until the World Cup. Following that i think he should go, but i think he should always have gone after Germany 2006 anyway. i'm unsure as to whether he's improved the team himself, or if we (and he) have just been lucky to get one of the most talented England teams for many years.
after that...we'll see whether the likes of Martin O'Neill, Chris Coleman or Alan Curbishley fancy the job.

[English assassin]

Can anyone explain why being England manager is a £3 million a year job by the way? Its not as if you have a team to train or anything. As far as I can tell the job consists of watching football and shagging your secretary. Oh, and Ulrika Jonsson on the side.

I'm going to write to the FA and offer to do all that for free, and save them £3 million a year. As for picking the team, I'd have a quick shufty at the sports pages the day before a match (in fact, I'd ask my secretary to do that, possibly when she had time on her hands while I was busy shagging Ulrika) and Bob's your uncle.

[matteus the inbred]

you have to be interviewed by Garth Crooks in a moodily lit room for MotD. i'd have to ask for a lot of money before i was prepared to do that...

[King Henry V]

Where's the Gah option?

[Dutch_guy]

He'll survive, don't think the English would want to change coach's when the tournament is only a couple of months away.

[King Kurt]

What is it about Sven that seems to work?? He seems to have no passion for the game - a la Cloughie or Fergerson - he isn't an inspirational leader and he seems occasionally lacking in the coaching side, often playing players out of position or the wrong system. But the players love him and he is, on the whole, sucessful - we always qualify and progress someway in the competitions - with a couple of breaks - and Rooney not breaking his foot - we could have won Euro 2004 and the last world cup. What is frustrating is that you can't see what he does to achieve this.
Also, you have to say our press are obsessed with the England manager. Why can't they leave it alone. They build them up then knock them down - sometimes in the same breath. The most amazing thing is that anybody actually wants to do the job at all - ex England managers are hardly in the top echelons of football management are they.

[InsaneApache]

Frankly my dear I don't give a damn unless the FA attempt to get their grubby little mits on Big Sam.

England to be knocked out in the opening stages. I have a fiver on it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Can anyone explain why being England manager is a £3 million a year job by the way?

And that's f(sorry, no pound sign on my keyboard) 3 million after taxes and excluding bonuses.
Though I wouldn't worry too much about ever having to actually pay him any of his lavish bonuses.

And I wouldn't mind a good explanation either of why a manager whose sole contribution to English football has been to make England vie with Spain for the title of 'biggest tournament underachievers ever' earns as much as the managers of Germany, Italy, Holland, Spain and France combined.

Sven-Goran Eriksson is by far the highest-paid coach in international football, peering down at his rivals from the top of a cash Everest reported to be €6 million a year.

Research shows that Germany's Jurgen Klinsmann is the next best-paid European coach after Eriksson.

He is reported to earn €2 million a year, plus all the free flights he can use courtesy of a sponsorship deal with Lufthansa.

Italy coach Marcello Lippi has so far succeeded in keeping a secret of his salary, but it is known that his predecessor in the job, Giovanni Trapattoni, earned €1.5 million a year.

Holland boss Marco van Basten is also reported to earn €1.5 million.

Perhaps surprisingly, France and Spain both pay their coaches relatively modest wages.

Spain's Luis Aragones earns an estimated €550,000, while French manager Raymond Domenech earns even less: his salary is believed to be close to €400,000 per annum.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Where's the Gah option?

Ooh, but it is there...

[Louis VI the Fat]

triple post.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Blimey, quadruple post.

Sorry for that.

[English assassin]

And I wouldn't mind a good explanation either of why a manager whose sole contribution to English football has been to make England vie with Spain for the title of 'biggest tournament underachievers ever'

Hmm, a full answer to this would require us to go into the bigger issue of "why the Football Association is rubbish" which would be a long discussion

So Klinsmannn only gets E 2m does he? (sorry no Euro sign on my keyboard, see how europhobic we are?!) Lets poach him. A German coach for the England team, blimey, that could start a war or two...

[Craterus]

He'll stay but he won't last much longer after that...

[King Henry V]

Ooh, but it is there...

Except I know who the Sexy Swede is...

[Louis VI the Fat]

Except I know who the Sexy Swede is...

Sneaky Sven, sexy? You sure we're talking about the same chap here?

[scotchedpommes]

he should stay on for a while, because the alternative is Steve '7-0 defeats don't worry me' McLaren.

That aside, the English are too harsh on him, considering the good he's done for
the team in the past. Yes, so Northern Ireland can beat them, but that's what
can happen when a team wants a victory that badly and is prepared to fight to
get it. Yet obviously when this or any relatively minor blip comes around the
press and a fair few of the fans want him gone.

Prospects of progress in the competition don't look too healthy though, if only
because England has significant difficulty playing Sweden, and hasn't beaten
them for years. The other teams are good enough to stop them too if they're
not on top form.

[I feel the need to vote Gah.]