Eriksson's brave face in game of kiss-and-sell

Sven Goran Eriksson was insisting his focus was on football ahead of last night's opening Euro 2004 qualifying tie here in Slovakia and not on pending revelations about his private life.

Eriksson maintained he was not worried about the contents of an autobiography being released by Ulrika Jonsson, with whom he had a much-publicised affair.

The concern is that the book, which started being serialised today, could contain ill-judged comments which the England coach may – admittedly out of character – have made about his players or his future.

An initial interview with the television presenter in yesterday's Daily Mail will not have damaged Eriksson in any way – at least not from a footballing point of view. Ms Jonsson merely referred to their relationship as nice and warm", adding that: "It wasn't shabby, shoddy or cheap."

Claims that Eriksson wanted to leave his Italian girlfriend, but was "too frightened" of her to do so, may make things a little trickier for the Swede in his personal life, however.

When asked whether there was anything he could imagine being published that might make him quit his post as England manager, Eriksson firmly replied: "No." While being unwilling to discuss the issue any further, he admitted to being ready to "pay the price of the job" and reluctantly added: "What should I be afraid of? When the book comes out, maybe I'll be worried, maybe not, but you can't lose sleep or your focus before then.

"Why don't we wait until we know what's in the book rather than talking about something which we don't know anything about?"

Eriksson dismissed the book as "other things which are not that important and shouldn't be that important at all to England fans, the players and the staff".

Indeed, he stressed that the European campaign had far more importance, especially as his two predecessors – Glenn Hoddle and Kevin Keegan – both lost their opening games and were out of their jobs soon afterwards.

"What's important here is the first qualifying game of the group and it will be a hard for us," said the Swede, whose team also face Macedonia at home on Wednesday. "We are focused on that and only want to talk about football. Otherwise, it would not be fair on England.

"I should be disappointed if we do not win these two games but they will not be easy. Sweden drew here on their way to qualifying for the World Cup. It might be that one lost point will decide the group winners so I said to the players that it's like a Champions' League group. If you fail in one or two games, the risk that you go out is extremely big so every game is very important. You can't afford to fail in many games as there are so few of them."

Eriksson has revealed that he will leave Arsenal's veteran goalkeeper David Seaman to decide how long he continues playing at the top level as he restored him to the England side. Eriksson had indicated earlier last week that he would ask Seaman, who has just turned 39, whether he felt he could carry on until the Euro 2004 finals in Portugal.

However, he later realised it would be an unfair question and has therefore left the ball in Seaman's court. "I thought about it later and wondered what I should say to Seaman," said Eriksson. "It's not really my job to ask him how long he wants to play football.

"Maybe Arsène Wenger should do that so that he can plan for the future if they want to buy another goalkeeper. But as long as David Seaman plays football as he's doing for Arsenal then I'm happy."