game. They were used to being allowed to build up their passing from their own half, without pressure, but we started challenging for the ball very high up the field, and worked very hard at it. It also helped, of course, that there was a lot of quality in that side.’
The final was against another Bundesliga team, Hamburg, who were stronger than Kaiserslautern, and confident of winning with something to spare. Only once before had a Swedish club reached a European final, and the poverty of Malmo’s performance in losing 1–0 to Nottingham Forest in the 1979 European Cup Final was not about to strike fear into Franz Beckenbauer and company. Bengtsson says: ‘To be honest, getting to the final was a surprise, even for us, but there was a good feeling, a good spirit about that team – the best I’ve ever known. We also had an advantage. When a team like Gothenburg are coming up from nowhere, nobody really believes they are going to go all the way, and obviously it helps if you have a good team and nobody really takes you seriously. In the quarter-finals, nobody had said much or thought much about us, so Valencia expected to win. You could tell that. It was the same in the semi-finals, and particularly in the final. Nobody thought we could play as well as we did. We took them by surprise.’
Gothenburg were ten games unbeaten coming into the final, with their twin strikers, Torbjorn Nilsson and Dan Corneliusson, in prolific form. The first leg, in the Ullevi stadium, left the tie intriguingly balanced. Tord Holmgren’s only goal of the match, in the 87th minute, gave the underdogs a lead to defend, but Hamburg thought they could easily overcome such a slender deficit at home. ‘Nobody gave us a chance over there,’ Eriksson recalled. ‘Hamburg had flags printed with “Hamburg SV winners of the UEFA Cup ‘82” all over them. You could buy them before the game. I still have one at home.’
His own players certainly regarded themselves as rank outsiders, albeit in a two-horse race. Stromberg says: ‘An hour and a half before the game, Sven told us: “You know, we have a good chance here.” We all looked at him thinking “Yeah, yeah. A good chance. How?” He said: “We’re a team who score a lot of goals, and we’re always likely to get one. Then, if we get one, they’ll have to get three.” Sven reminded us that nobody had scored three times against us all season, and that got us thinking. We turned to one another with looks that said: “Yeah, he’s right, we do have a chance here.”’
Teutonic speculation focused on whether Beckenbauer would play and pick up the one trophy that had eluded him. Two weeks away from retirement ‘The Kaiser’ had only just recovered from a bruised kidney, and had been among the substitutes a few days earlier, for the 5–0 drubbing of Werder Bremen. Ernst Happel, Hamburg’s Austrian coach, said: ‘There is a possibility Beckenbauer will play, but there is often a hitch between theory and practice.’ Too true; the great man never appeared. Nevertheless, Happel still had three formidable German internationals – Manni Kaltz, Felix Magath and Horst Hrubesch – at his command. Victory would be a formality.
The trip had inauspicious beginnings for Glenn Schiller. ‘I’d forgotten my boots, left them in Sweden,’ he says. ‘Sven wasn’t pleased. He said: “The only thing you have to bring with you is your boots, and you can’t be relied on to do that.” He made me buy new ones.’ Keen to get out of the manager’s way, Schiller was sitting in the toilet as the final preparations were made. ‘I was starting on the bench, so I was in no great hurry, and I was sat in there reading the match programme, with all the adverts for Hamburg cup-winning souvenirs. You could see that they had taken too much for granted, and definitely underestimated us.
‘When I came out, I could hear the crowd yelling and the dressing room was empty. I was locked in. I was banging on the door, trying to get out, but nobody came, and in the end I had to climb over the door. I was probably in there on my own for ten minutes. Just as I got out, Glenn Hysen was injured, and Svennis was asking everybody on the bench “Where’s Schiller?” They looked around and told him: “He’s coming.” I was running around the track and was sent straight on, so you could say I did my warm-up in the toilet! I didn’t get to sit on the bench, I sat on the throne instead.’
Hamburg started urgently, seeking the early goal which would square the tie and give them the initiative but, against all expectations, it was Gothenburg who played the better football. The Germans were too hurried, making mistakes which were ruthlessly exploited. After 26 minutes Eriksson’s underdogs were ahead, Tommy Holmgren, the younger brother of Tord, breaking down the left and crossing for Corneliusson to score with a powerful shot. Hamburg’s morale nosedived, Gothenburg’s soared, and the issue was put beyond doubt after 61 minutes, when Nilsson, who was outstanding throughout, outran Magath over 40 yards before making it 2–0 on the night. The Swedes were now 3–0 up on aggregate with away goals in their favour. Hamburg needed four goals in half an hour, but were a broken team, and disappointed fans were streaming out of the Volksparkstadion when Nilsson was fouled inside the penalty area and Stig Fredriksson scored from the spot.
Stromberg says: ‘It was one of those nights when everything is just perfect. Torbjorn Nilsson, our centre-forward, was probably the best striker in Europe for two or three years around that time, but I don’t think it was down to him, or the midfield, or the defence. Everything, everybody, was just perfect. I remember Hrubesch turning to me during the game and saying: “You know, we could play you ten times and never win.” On our form that night, he was right. We were that good. Every player knew what to do, where to be at any given time. Throughout the 90 minutes, I don’t remember any player being caught out of position once. Sven had prepared us that well.’
After 4,000 exultant Swedes had acclaimed their heroes on a lap of honour, Eriksson said: ‘I’m the happiest man alive. I thought we might sneak it 1–0, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we could come to Hamburg and score three.’ Happel offered no excuses. The first goal had been crucial, fracturing his team’s morale, he said. ‘In the end, they could have scored four or five.’
For winning the UEFA Cup, the Gothenburg players received £50,000 a man on top of their basic salaries of £1,500 per month. Schiller immediately put a big hole in his bonus by buying a Porsche. ‘Glenn Stromberg bought one too,’ he said, chuckling at the memory. ‘We were the two single guys in the team, you understand.’
Eriksson was also in the outside lane. Suddenly all Europe had heard of ‘Sven Who?’, and Gothenburg couldn’t hope to keep him. But he had built a young team good enough to dominate Swedish football for the next five years under Bengtsson, who succeeded him, and to win the UEFA again in 1987.
At the end of the 1981/82 season, Benfica were looking for a coach to replace the veteran Hungarian, Lajos Baroti. The world-renowned Lisbon ‘Eagles’ had done the league and cup double in his first season, 1980/81, but second place in 1982 was not good enough for a club with stratospheric standards (winners of 30 championships since 1935, they had never finished below fourth), and he had to go. Gothenburg may be Sweden’s biggest club, but Benfica operate on a higher plane entirely. They have always been number one in Portugal, and were, for a time, pre-eminent in Europe, making five appearances in the European Cup Final in the 1960s. When they want a coach, they usually get their man, and so it was in 1982 when, impressed by Eriksson’s triumph with Gothenburg in the UEFA Cup, they sent a private jet to fetch him and offer him the job.
His first task was to change the players’ mentality. Eriksson explained: ‘This was a team who played well at home, with a lot of courage, but as soon as they had an away game it was a different story. It seemed that in the Portuguese league they had learned that by winning at home and drawing away they could win the championship. Their away matches in Europe were particularly disappointing. They didn’t want to run and challenge the opposition and kept falling back. In the first round of the UEFA Cup, against Real Betis, I lost my temper. We were losing 1–0, but the players were happy. Losing 1–0 there was OK because we would beat them at home. At half-time I was furious. “What are you trying to do?” I said. “Are you here to play football or not?” One of the players spoke up. “Sure,” he said, “this is how we play away from home.” So I said: “The