Ștefan Kovács

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Ștefan Kovács
Stefan Kovacs.jpg
Ștefan Kovács (1971)
Personnel
birthday October 2, 1920
place of birth Timișoara ,  Kingdom of Romania
date of death May 12, 1995
Place of death Cluj-Napoca ,  Romania
position midfield
Juniors
Years station
1931-1934 CA Timișoara
1934-1937 CA Oradea
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1937-1938 CA Oradea
1938-1941 Olympic Charleroi
1941 Ripensia Timișoara
1941-1942 CFR Turnu Severin
1942-1947 Kolozsvári Vasas
1947-1948 CFR Cluj
1948-1953 CSU / Știința Cluj
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1952-1959 Știința Cluj
1959-1962 CFR Cluj
1962-1967 Romania (assistant coach)
1967-1971 Steaua Bucharest
1971-1973 Ajax Amsterdam
1973-1975 France
1976-1980 Romania
1981-1983 Panathinaikos Athens
1986-1987 AS Monaco
1 Only league games are given.

Ștefan "Pişti" Kovács (born October 2, 1920 in Timişoara ; † May 12, 1995 in Cluj-Napoca ) was a Romanian football player and coach . He was a successful coach at Ajax Amsterdam in the 1970s and looked after the national teams of France and Romania .

Life and playing career

Ștefan Kovács was born in Timișoara as the second son of a Hungarian father and a Romanian . Kovács played in his youth with CA Timișoara , CAO Oradea , CFR Satu Mare and Olimpia Satu Mare . In 1938 he accepted an offer from Belgium and from then on worked for the ROC Charleroi , where in 1939 he achieved the best result in the club's history with third place in the Belgian championship.

In 1941, the player, which can be used both as a striker and as an outside runner, returned to Romania and played for a short time at Ripensia Timișoara . He then moved to CFR Turnu Severin , the newcomer to Divizia A , but the 1941/42 season was not held due to the outbreak of World War II . Kovács joined the Kolozsvári AC in 1942 . Since northern Transylvania fell to Hungary through the Second Vienna Arbitration , the team from Cluj played in the Hungarian league and even reached third place in 1944. After the area was returned to Romania, the club was dissolved and in 1945 Kovács moved to the newly founded Ferar Cluj , where his older brother Nicolae also played. In 1947 the club joined the CFR Cluj , for which Kovács played one season before moving to local rivals CSU Cluj .

With the new club he reached the Romanian Cup final in 1949, which however was lost to CSCA Bucharest with 1: 2. At the end of the 1948/49 season , CSU had to relegate to Divizia B and change its name to Știința Cluj . However, the club immediately made it back to the top division and Kovács remained loyal to him until the end of his career in 1953.

Kovács played a total of 111 games in Divizia A, in which he scored 12 goals.

Coaching career

From 1949 Kovács also took on coaching duties, initially for a short time in the youth division of CFR Cluj. At Știința Cluj, he worked for one season as a player-coach in 1952 . He then became a full-time coach of the team and looked after them until 1959 when he moved again to CFR Cluj. In 1960 the club merged with Rapid Cluj to form CSM Cluj, whose coach Kovács remained until 1962.

Kovács (center) and Cruyff , 1972

In 1962 he accepted a post at the Romanian Federation , where he was responsible for the junior selection and the B national team in the following years. In the spring of 1965 he became Ilie Oană's assistant coach for the Romanian national team . The team had to give up their work after the 1: 7 defeat on May 24, 1967 against Switzerland as part of the qualification for the EM 1968 .

Immediately afterwards, Kovács received an offer from Steaua Bucharest and was able to get the Romanian championship title in the first season 1967/68 . This was followed by three Romanian cup wins over the next few years. In the European competitions, however, the Bucharest were less successful and were eliminated in the second round at the latest.

In 1971 the successful coach Rinus Michels left his long-time club Ajax Amsterdam , where he had built a team that had won a number of titles and was enthusiastic about total football . The choice of the successor by the club officials surprisingly fell on the comparatively little-known Romanian. In the summer of 1971, Kovács took over a team that was peppered with stars such as Johan Cruyff , Johan Neeskens , Gerrie Mühren and Piet Keizer and carried on the Michels concept. However, his leadership style differed significantly from that of his authoritarian predecessor in that he gave the players much more freedom. This led to Ajax adapting its style of play even more to the individual class of the players under his leadership and winning no fewer than seven titles in two years, including twice the European Cup of national champions , where they defeated Inter Milan 2-0 in the 1972 final and won 1-0 in the 1973 final against Juventus Turin . At the same time, this decline in discipline also meant that the team finally broke up. In an interview, Mühren described Kovács as follows: "He was a very good coach, but too nice. Rinus Michels was more professional, he was for absolute discipline, very strict, everyone on the same level. At the beginning, in the first year, we played even better under Kovács, because we were good players and now we had the freedom to act out our fantasies on the field. But after that the discipline was lost and it was over. "

After two years, Kovács left the Dutch and accepted an invitation from the French Football Association to look after the national team . The Equipe Tricolore had not been able to qualify for the 1974 World Cup and at that time was only a European mediocre. The following qualifying round for the 1976 European Championship was equally a fiasco for the French. In a group with Belgium , the GDR and Iceland , it was only enough to win and third in the group. Kovács could not help the team in the short term and did not spare criticism of the environment or of French football in general. He criticized the attitude of some players to the national team, their unwillingness to go abroad and the style of play of many club teams. At the end of 1975 he retired after only six wins in 15 games and summarized: “I embarrassed the players. In the end I made them uncomfortable, they wanted an expert on football. Please, I said, I am one. I told them the truth. They would have preferred a miracle, but unfortunately that was not possible. A remarkable people, the French, but in football it has certain advantages not to be that extraordinary. ” Apart from José Arribas , who came to France when he was a teenager, Kovács is the only foreigner who coached the French to this day .

He then returned to Romania, where he took over the national team from 1976 and became vice-president of the football association. During his time as the responsible coach until August 1979 and again at short notice in January 1980 and October 1981, the team was unable to qualify for the 1978 World Cup , the 1980 European Championship or the 1982 World Cup. The only countable success during his tenure was winning the Balkan Cup in 1980. He then remained active as a functionary in the Romanian association.

In 1981 he took over the coaching position at Panathinaikos Athens and won the Greek Cup with the team. His last coaching position was AS Monaco , which he led to fifth place in the table in 1986/87 before he was replaced by Arsène Wenger .

successes

player

Trainer

Others

In 1975 Kovács published the book “Fotbal total”, which was a great success. He is the younger brother of Nicolae Kovacs .

literature

  • Ștefan Kovács / Jacques Ferran: Football Total. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1975, ISBN 2-7021-0019-8 .
  • Mihai Ionescu / Răzvan Toma / Mircea Tudoran: Fotbal de la A la Z . Mondocart Pres, Bucharest 2001, ISBN 973-8332-00-1 , p. 266 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dezvăluiri despre românul care a revoluţionat fotbalul mondial . citynews.ro from April 4, 2013 (Romanian)
  2. ^ Translated from: David Winner, Brilliant Orange - The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football , Bloomsbury, 2000
  3. ↑ John Vinocur : Instead of perseverance, only excuses , in Die Zeit , No. 11/1976, p. 14

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kovács, Ștefan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kovács, István; Covaci, Ștefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Timișoara , Kingdom of Romania
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1995
Place of death Cluj-Napoca , Romania