Bela Guttmann: the manager who survived the Holocaust, conquered Europe and cursed Benfica In Cardiff last Saturday, Zinedine Zidane became the 10th manager to win consecutive European Cups. He joins an elite list which […]

In Cardiff last Saturday, Zinedine Zidane became the 10th manager to win consecutive European Cups.

He joins an elite list which includes Bob Paisley, Sir Alex Ferguson, Helenio Herrera and Arrigo Sacchi.

Yet none have suffered, endured and prospered to the same extent as Bela Guttmann, the Hungarian who led Benfica to the trophy in 1961 and 1962.

None have a story quite like him.

“He basically put his life on the line for football.”

Born in the last year of the 19th century, his playing career took him to Austria and the United States. Management took him even further. Brazil, Argentina, Switzerland and Portugal were just some of the stops in a peripatetic career.

A remarkable tale which becomes ever more unique when you consider that Guttmann was a Holocaust survivor, escaping a slave camp while family and friends perished.

Author David Bolchover has chronicled the manager’s life in his new book ‘The Greatest Comeback: From Genocide to Football Glory’.

The story no one really knew

Bolchover spent three years researching the Hungarian, combining research gathered from all over the world. Every turn met with new, more fascinating stories.

“The big thing about Guttmann is what happened to him in the Holocaust,” Bolchover tells i. “Nobody really knew. If you go on the internet and read references to him in football history it often says he was in Switzerland.

“I think he is the greatest Jew in football. I don’t think you can challenge that very easily.” David Bolchover

“So I started getting interested in this whole thing. I wasn’t thinking about writing a book but I wrote to the Swiss authorities. They’ve got a special department who have got all the names of the Jews who escaped from the rest of Europe to go to neutral Switzerland.

“I asked them to send me any details of Bela Guttmann. They wrote back to me: ‘We haven’t got anyone by that name.’

“I came across some material that he was a Holocaust survivor. The whole story then changed and became much more dramatic.

“He survived Europe’s Holocaust and went on to win the premier sporting competition in Europe. This is an incredible story and it is a forgotten story.

“From that moment on I had to write this book.”

‘He put his life on the line for football’

The conventional story says Guttmann fled Austria to his native Hungary when the Nazis invaded in 1938 to manage before moving on to Switzerland. But the real story is “much more dramatic” according to Bolchover.

Guttmann’s managerial travels ?? Hakoah Vienna

?? FC Twente

?? Hakoah Vienna

?? Újpest

?? Vasas

?? Ciocanul Bucharest

?? Újpest

?? Honvéd

?? Padova

?? Triestina

?? Quilmes

?? APOEL

?? A.C. Milan

?? Vicenza

?? Honvéd

?? São Paulo

?? Porto

?? Benfica

?? Peñarol

?? Austria

?? Benfica

?? Servette

?? Panathinaikos

?? Austria Vienna

?? Porto

“The whole of Jewish Europe was desperate to get out by this stage. He got one of these precious visas to get to the United States which gave him permanent residency. He came back because there was nothing doing football wise in the US.

“He got wind of this job offer at Újpest, a big Hungarian club. He basically put his life on the line for football.”

Success followed, Guttmann leading his team to league success as well as the Mitropa Cup, the pre-cursor to the European Cup, in 1939.

Then circumstances in his homeland changed, as an independent Hungary passed laws which restricted Jewish participation in high-profile roles. But it would get worse.

“The Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, the Holocaust in Hungary was very late but it was incredibly brutal – 430,000 Jews were murdered in the space of 54 days.

“Guttmann was in hiding on the outskirts of a Jewish ghetto in an attic. Later on he was in a slave labour camp which he escaped. His father was murdered, his sister was murdered, also wider family and friends, former team-mates.

“He came back from the United States in 1938 when the rest of Europe was trying to get out, and not only survived but prospered.”

Discovering Eusebio – and cursing Benfica

It was in Portugal that he emerged as the first of the “superstar coaches”. Winning the league with Porto before European success with Benfica and discovering Eusebio.

“He came to Portugal in 1958. He’d just won the league in Brazil with São Paulo. He won the league in his first season with Porto, then he was snatched by Benfica.

“In the close season in 1961 after they won the European Cup he found the ticket to football immortality in Eusebio. He discovered Eusebio from Mozambique through his contacts. Eusebio inspired the team to victory in 1962.”

Yet it would turn sour when he was denied more money by Benfica. His parting shot was allegedly a hundred-year curse on the club that they would never win a European title.

When Benfica played AC Milan in the 1990 European Cup final in Vienna, Eusebio visited Guttmann’s grave in the Austrian capital to plead for him to end it.

Since 1962 they’ve contested eight European finals and lost every one.

“He was the first of the superstar coaches,” says Bolchover. “He was the first to insist on the value of the coach, the coach is key to the team’s success.

“If you want to have success you have to have a great coach and you have to pay for it. This was unprecedented.”

A man of the world

Guttmann retired in Portugal with Porto in 1973, putting a full stop on a career that had taken in 11 countries and 18 clubs in two continents following the war.

He was laid to rest in 1981.

“He certainly was a man of the world but you could also say he felt no roots anywhere and that’s hardly surprising given what he experienced in his life,” Bolchover says. “He felt no loyalty to any particular country.

“He liked the life in Vienna but resigned as the coach of the national team in 1964 because he said he couldn’t bare the anti-Semitism.

“He didn’t feel at home anywhere.

“I think he is the greatest Jew in football. I don’t think you can challenge that very easily.”

The Greatest Comeback by David Bolchover is out now, davidbolchover.com