Sven Goran-Eriksson Is Taking Mexico, Spanish Speaking By Storm

Former England head coach Sven Goran-Eriksson has always been a fun-loving guy. So when he became successor to Hugo Sanchez heading up Mexico’s national team, the Dutchman went headfirst into soaking up the language (he spends two hours a day learning Spanish!), the museums and culture of Mexico City. Oh and he also learned that the Mexican side has actually become strong over the past decade… which we would think he would’ve known before he took the job but (/shrug) we guess he was just happy to leave England and fell in love with Mexico by accident.

Football today is very universal… now Mexico has 14 or 15 players playing in Europe, and when they play for Barcelona or they play for Stuttgart or for PSV Eindhoven or for whoever it is, do they play Mexican football or do they play worldwide football?

“I think you have maybe three national teams in the world that bring a lot of fans wherever they go, playing at home or playing away. Those three are Mexico, England and Brazil. So there are a lot of similarities in that way.”

Yeah, we’d throw Argentina in there, but the only reason people go to see them play is to hopefully see them lose. But we guess tickets sold are tickets sold.
Sven-Goran Eriksson is enjoying the life as Mexico’s coach [LA Times]
Image [LA Times]