LOS ANGELES – He lives in a swank penthouse apartment in Mexico City, with 30 stories below him and a helipad above him, with 11,000 square feet of floor space, with monthly rent payments of $12,000. The skyscraper was designed by famed architect Cesar Pelli and is in the exclusive Polanco neighborhood, a stunning cylindrical glass and metal tower.
But not, apparently, an ivory one.
Sven Goran Eriksson has been Mexico's national soccer coach for barely three months, and for a 60-year-old Swede who had never stepped foot on Mexican soil before June and who spoke five languages but not Spanish, he has assimilated quickly.
He hired an almost all-Mexican staff. He conducted a news conference yesterday in Spanish after studying for two hours a day. He has frequented Mexico City museums in an attempt to learn about the culture and history. He has traveled tirelessly across the region to watch Mexican players with their professional clubs.
“I enjoy living in Mexico,” Eriksson said. “I don't like it. I love it. It's a nice life, a nice city and extremely nice people. A big, big surprise for me.”
And the job?
“I'm enjoying the job, of course. Three games, three wins. It's easy to enjoy it.”
Then Eriksson flashes an uneasy grin behind those round spectacles and the shock of gray hair, and adds this: “There will be harder times, I'm sure.”
Learn all the Spanish you want, watch all the Mexican games you can, visit the renowned anthropology museum and become intimate with
Aztec and Mayan culture, and it carries little currency among 110 million Mexicans if you can't win. El Tri is 3-0 under Eriksson, all World Cup qualifiers. And all of them at home, where Mexico never loses.
The true test of the Eriksson era, of the Eriksson experiment, comes when or if he loses at Guatemala, or posts a nil-nil draw at Trinidad and Tobago. The luna de miel – Spanish for honeymoon – ends quickly then.
Eriksson's first match outside Mexico is tonight, a friendly against Chile at the Los Angeles Coliseum with a roster of less experienced players. After this, there are qualifiers in Jamaica, Canada and Honduras.
Eriksson was hired the day before Mexico played Argentina on June 4 at Qualcomm Stadium, and things didn't start well. Lionel Messi and Argentina blasted El Tri 4-1 with Eriksson watching from the press box while Jesus
“ChuCho” Ramirez finished a lame-duck tenure as interim coach. Four days later, after a friendly against Peru in Chicago, veteran goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez was arrested at the team hotel in the wee hours of the morning for public disorder.
Eriksson's first game on the bench was a qualifier against Honduras in Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, and Honduras went ahead 1-0 on a 35th-minute free kick. The foul was by Brazilian-born Leandro Augusto, Eriksson's only real change to the previous lineups and a choice that drew groans from nationalists who insist only Mexican-born citizens wear the famed green jersey.
But midfielder Pavel Pardo bailed out Eriksson with two goals for a 2-1 triumph. That was followed by wins against Jamaica and Canada.
And by a European charm and confidence that, so far, has soothed nerves frayed by watching a nation's icon, Hugo Sanchez, fail miserably.
All those cries – many from the very players on Eriksson's roster – about how someone who didn't understand Mexico couldn't coach it have subsided. Even his harshest critics appear, at the very least, to be giving this most improbable marriage some time to work.
“I think in the future we will manage to compete with all the best teams in the world,” Eriksson told a dozen TV crews assembled at a downtown Los Angeles hotel yesterday. “Who's the best today, I don't know. But you're talking about two South American teams, Brazil and Argentina. You're talking about five to six European teams.
“And I hope and I think and I believe we can compete with them in the next World Cup.
For now, the changes are cosmetic. Practices are shorter but more intense. Athletes Performance, an Arizona-based group that works with elite athletes, has been hired to oversee fitness training. Augusto is in, Jared Borgetti is out, and Tijuana's Fernando Arce seems to be solidifying a midfield spot.
“People always told me that the mentality of the Mexican football player is not good,” Eriksson said. “I can't confirm that, because I can't see it. We played two of the qualification games and we didn't score in the beginning and we were (losing), but mentally the players were very, very strong.
“They didn't panic. They didn't try to play football for themselves. They played as a (group) and just went on with the plans and tactics we had.”
The luna de miel continues.
Mark Zeigler: (619) 293-2205; mark.zeigler@uniontrib.com
