Sven-Goran Eriksson believes the experience of two World Cups with England will help him turn Ivory Coast's talented individuals into a team capable of making an impact at this year's tournament in South Africa.
The 62-year-old Swede, who took England to the quarterfinals in 2002 and '06, has one of the toughest jobs of the 2010 World Cup when Ivory Coast comes up against Brazil and Portugal in Group G, with only two teams advancing to the knockout stage.
Eriksson said Friday he knew the group was tough when he took the job and it was up to him to work with Chelsea striker Didier Drogba and others to make an effective team.
"Of course it's a very difficult group," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "One of the best teams in the world, Brazil. And Portugal, we know what they have done recently and they have a top player in Cristiano Ronaldo. I met them in the World Cups with England."
Sadly for Eriksson and England, Brazil and Portugal knocked his team out each time, which makes taking this particular job after the draw even more puzzling.
But Eriksson, who is back in charge of a national team after a short, aborted spell as director of soccer at fourth-tier English club Notts County, can't keep away from South Africa and believes what he learned with England he can use with the Ivory Coast.
"In a big tournament like a World Cup or Euros, you learn a lot," said Eriksson, who took the Ivory Coast job in late March after Vahid Halilhodzic was fired. "But it's beautiful. In a professional life it's the best you can ever reach to take part in a World Cup."
Eriksson is taking some eye-catching guests to this party, notably Drogba, who has scored 25 goals to put his club top of the Premier League with two games to go.
"I don't know him very well. But he seems to be a clever man and, as a football player, he is top of the top," Eriksson said. "There are several other players as well, the brothers Toure, one at Barcelona (Yaya) and the other at City (Kolo). But if you have in your team a striker scoring 25 goals in the Premier League you know he is good."
The Ivorians kick off against Portugal in the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium at Port Elizabeth on June 15 and take on five-time World Cup winner Brazil at Soccer City in Johannesburg five days later. Having got the two toughest games out of the way, Eriksson's team faces the outsider of the group, North Korea, at Nelspruit.
"I have tapes (of North Korea)," he said. "They have already started preparing. They will be super-fit, they have already been together for one month, which is a luxury when you consider the European teams."
Many of the biggest names at the World Cup will play right to the end of a demanding European club season.
"The fitness levels are always a big question mark whenever there is a World Cup," he said. "All the players who play in Europe are a little bit tired."
He said he tried without success to get the English soccer authorities to reschedule the domestic season so that it finished earlier and the players had time to rest.
"I kept running into a stone wall," he said. "It's the Premier League, it's too strong, too powerful. It's (about) money."
A successful coach at club level who won titles in Sweden, Portugal and Italy before he become England coach in 2001, Eriksson has no plans to wind down his career despite its hectic travel routine.
"It's a job but sometimes you wake up in the morning and you wonder where you are," he said.
Eriksson's spell with England coincided with frequent newspaper headlines about his private life and liaisons with a Swedish TV personality, but he has never shut himself off from media attention and his soccer career shows no sign of slowing down.
"(Retirement) will happen one day but I wouldn't know what to do," he said. "I had a year off and it was awful after only one month. I was nervous, frustrated, the worst time of my life."
