In part two, Sven chats more about Lazio’s famous Scudetto win in 2000. He and his players did their bit on the last day – then endured an agonising wait listening to the radio for Juventus to lose against Perugia.

At Sampdoria and Lazio, Roberto Mancini was Sven’s artist, a man who breathed football and went crazy when things went wrong. It was he and Gianluca Vialli who had insisted that Sven be their next manager at Samp.

We hear about Sven’s time as England coach – his one regret is that he didn’t employ a psychologist to focus on penalty shootouts. He did have the pleasure of getting to work with David Beckham, a man he thinks the world of. Sven even tried to sign Becks for Leicester City – but Victoria put the kybosh on that!

There’s chat about the magnificent Pavel Nedvěd, who was such a workaholic that Sven had to ban him from the Lazio training ground during the summer. Sven also describes how he had a contract to become Chelsea boss in front of him but pulled out after the tabloids got wind and accused him of treachery to the England cause. But he did the Blues one massive favour – he advised Roman Abramovich to buy the club instead of Spurs.

Lastly, we also find out about the ‘Gre-No-Li’; the three Swedes who set Italian football on fire during their spells at AC Milan in the 1950s.

Graham.

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