Inevitably framed with sadness following his recent passing, Prime's latest sporting documentary traces the charmed but troubled life of Sven-Göran Eriksson, the first foreign manager of England’s football team. From European glory with semi-professional Gothenburg to major club success across the continent, the Swede seldom ducked a challenge. And when the England role came calling in 2001, he accepted with alacrity, unprepared for the levels of tabloid scrutiny his private life would receive.

With the likes of Roberto Mancini, a perceptive Wayne Rooney and David Beckham paying tribute to Eriksson’s talents as a coach (the latter particularly effusive in his love for a mentor figure), the film also covers in great detail the scandals of the Scandinavian’s affairs. His long-time partner, Italian socialite Nancy Dell’Olio, whom he twice cheated on (with Ulrika Jonsson and Football Association PA Faria Alam) appears, still evidently hurting, while Alam is bewildered but philosophical about the way she was thrown to the Fleet Street wolves.

Throughout the documentary, the disarmingly humble and placid Eriksson appears to sail serenely on through the tawdriness of the gossip storm and a subsequent News Of The World sting. He's unwilling to be preached to by the rough and rabid British press but arguably displays a staggering lack of personal responsibility. He will, though, admit to neglecting his children in their youth to be with his most enduring mistress: football. And the scenes with his family in his beautiful Nordic home, awaiting death with fulfilled dignity in the final stages of pancreatic cancer, have acquired only greater poignancy with his death. 

SVEN is available now on Prime Video.