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Sven-Göran Eriksson has been linked with the Cote d’Ivoire coaching job ever since Vahid Halilhodžić was shown the door for his team’s poor Africa Cup of Nations 2010 showing. Yet somehow I was still surprised when Sven was officially announced as the new Elephants boss yesterday. Mostly I’m wondering why they want him.

Sven’s 2002 and 2006 England teams didn’t exactly light up the tournament. The 2006 version was especially uninspiring. Sven followed that up with a so-so season at Man City and then an almost laughable attempt to manage Mexico through what should have been an easy CONCACAF World Cup 2010 qualification hexagonal. Sven’s spell in Mexico ended like this:

“We told Mr. Eriksson that his term with the national team has finished,” said Justino Compean, president of the Mexican Football Federation in a news conference.

“We could not risk Mexico’s participation in the World Cup.”

So how does a man who failed to achieve anything notable with England at two previous World Cups and then almost managed to keep Mexico out of this World Cup (don’t worry, El Tri still made thanks to Javier Aguirre’s rescue act) get offered a job coaching one of the more star-studded teams at World Cup 2010?

The answer is: I don’t know. Maybe he’s better at coaching than he is at PR, and people in the game think very highly of him? Maybe he has a safe containing incriminating photos of every football association and federation president in the world? Or maybe it’s just because he’s Swedish, and 2010 is the year where Swedish managers are determined to be at the World Cup.

Despite Sweden failing to qualify for World Cup 2010, Sven will be joined in South Africa by compatriot Lars Lagerback. Yes, the same Lars Lagerback who failed to get the Swedish national team to the big show, but recently took the Nigeria job. Seems Swedish managers can’t lose, even when they do so a lot.

It’s massively unfair maybe, but at least this is good news for Swedish football fans, who may not have Sweden to support at World Cup 2010, but in the first World Cup ever on African soil, they’ll have not one but two African teams to cheer for.

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