Former Manchester City manager reveals heartbreaking terminal cancer diagnosis

Former Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has announced that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancel and has around a year to live.

The 75-year-old succeeded Stuart Pearce in July 2007, becoming the club’s first overseas manager, and taking charge of Manchester City for the 2007/08 campaign, where he guided the Blues to a 9th place finish.

The Swede announced on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, having been forced to leave his most recent role as Sporting Director at Karlstad, due to health issues.

Manchester City won 19 matches under the management of Eriksson, with the 75-year-old having also managed the England national team between 2001 and 2006, becoming the nation’s first foreign manager.

Eriksson guided England to the quarter-finals at three major tournaments, and also managed at Leicester City, Benfica, Roma, Fiorentina and Sampdoria.

Speaking with Swedish radio station P1, Eriksson said: “Everyone can see that I have a disease that’s not good, and everyone supposes that it’s cancer, and it is. But I have to fight it as long as possible.

“I know that in the best case it’s about a year, in the worst case even less. Or in the best case I suppose even longer. I don’t think the doctors I have can be totally sure, they can’t put a day on it.

“It’s better not to think about it. You have to trick your brain. I could go around thinking about that all the time and sit at home and be miserable and think I’m unlucky and so on.

“It’s easy to end up in that position. But no, see the positive sides of things and don’t bury yourself in setbacks, because this is the biggest setback of them all of course. It just came from nothing. And that makes you shocked.

“I’m not in any major pain. But I’ve been diagnosed with a disease that you can slow down but you cannot operate. So it is what it is.”

A statement posted by Manchester City on X (formerly Twitter), read: “Everyone at Manchester City is thinking of Sven-Göran Eriksson, and we wish to express our collective support to our former Manager, and his family and friends, during this time.”