The European Football Championship in England is symbolic in many ways.
Here, women’s football has developed explosively in recent years. Here, the Swedish team captain Caroline Seger played her first championship already 17 years ago. And here the Swedish women’s national team took their only championship gold so far – in the European Championships in 1984, in a muddy penalty drama in Luton.
For Marika Domanski Lyfors the symbol value is even greater.
– Should we take a gold in England, after we took it in 1984, it would be the best so far, says the Swedish national team manager when she meets DN for a longer interview.
– Then I would weigh in a lot of my own personal feelings in it.
In different roles she has has been involved in the Swedish national team for over 30 years. As the national team captain, she led Sweden to European Championship silver in 2001 and World Cup silver in 2003, as national team manager it has – among other things – become two Olympic silver.
But her husband Ulf Lyfors always had something she was missing: the gold.
Ulf Lyfors was the national team captain for the women’s football during that European Championship play-off 38 years ago. In February this year, while the national team was playing the Algarve Cup in Portugal, he passed away at the age of 78.
Had you talked about the gold dream together?
– Yes, we did. We had football, it was ours and we had it together, says Marika Domanski Lyfors.
– Even though we did not always have the same opinions – we really did not – we had a lot of discussions and talked.
– So we had talked about the European Championships and somewhere we had always been arguing about that gold, through all the years. He thought that a gold in the European Championships was better than a World Cup silver, I never wanted to admit that … but now it can be.
We had football, it was ours and we had it together.
The eyes water but the national team manager would like to continue to say:
– And besides, I admitted when we buried him that he was the best. He really was. In many ways. But I would feel that it (a gold) would somehow honor him.
The chance also exists to a very high degree.
Sweden is the new Olympic runner-up and world runner-up ahead of this summer’s European Championship adventure.
– I do not think we have been more favorite than we are now, says Marika Domanski Lyfors.
At the same time it has during the spring there were periods when she did not want to think about football at all. Only when the national team gathered again in April for the World Cup qualifiers did hunger arise again.
– Somehow when he passed away it felt like “football – no”, I stayed away and could not go to matches.
– The first time I could really feel that I could take back football was in connection with us playing in Gothenburg. Then I felt that football was not gone, even though it felt that way when he passed away.
The European Championship premiere is played against the Netherlands on Saturday – on Ulf Lyfors birthday.
What support have you received from the national team?
– Oh my God. It has been… since it happened down in Portugal it became so abrupt, so here and there I got great support at night from leaders and players. And then I had to knit at three in the morning.
– And even when I came back I got a lot of support. I almost came back like a rag after I said goodbye. But I went home again quite exhausted and with a little joy of life. Peter (national team captain Gerhardsson) usually says that the national team is his second family. It’s worth gold.
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