Pál Csernai

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Pál Csernai
Personnel
birthday October 21, 1932
place of birth Pilis ,  Kingdom of Hungary
date of death September 1, 2013
Place of death Budapest ,  Hungary
position midfield
Juniors
Years station
0000-1948 Vasas Csepel Budapest
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1948-1955 Csepel SC
1956-1958 Karlsruher SC 28 0(6)
1958-1959 FC La Chaux-de-Fonds
1959-1965 Stuttgart Kickers 113 (11)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1955 Hungary 2 0(0)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1968-1970 Wacker 04 Berlin
1970-1971 SSV Reutlingen 05
1971-1972 Royal Antwerp
1973-1977 Badischer Football Association
1978-1983 FC Bayern Munich
1983-1984 PAOK Thessaloniki
1984-1985 Benfica Lisbon
1985-1986 Borussia Dortmund
1987-1988 Fenerbahçe Istanbul
1988 Eintracht Frankfurt
1990 BSC Young Boys
1990-1991 Hertha BSC
1993-1994 North Korea
1994-1995 FC Sopron
1 Only league games are given.

Pál Csernai [ ˈpaːl ˈʧɛrnɒ.i ] (born October 21, 1932 in Pilis , † September 1, 2013 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian football player and coach .

The two-time Hungarian national team coach led FC Bayern Munich back to the top in the early 1980s. He won the German championship with the club in 1980 and 1981 and the DFB Cup in 1982 . In the same year he led Bayern to the final of the European Cup. With Benfica Lisbon he won the Portuguese Cup competition in 1985 .

For Germany, Csernai is of football historical importance as a pioneer of today's standard spatial coverage . His younger brother Tibor Csernai was also a soccer player.

Career

player

Emerging from the youth department of Vasas Csepel Budapest , he moved up in 1948 to the professional team, for which he was active until 1955. In 1955 he had played two international matches for the senior national team .

Like many other great Hungarians of his era, he left his homeland during the Hungarian uprising in 1956 . He came to Germany via Switzerland and joined the Karlsruher SC , the reigning cup winner and runner-up , in the Oberliga Süd in the second half of the 1956/57 season . By the end of the following season he scored six goals in 28 league games and said goodbye to the 1958 South German Championship. He spent the 1958/59 season at FC La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland , with whom he finished seventh in the National League A , which at the time graduated from the top division.

From 1959 to 1965 he played for the Stuttgarter Kickers, which had just been promoted back to the league . In his first season there, the Kickers were knocked off the last of the first-class league at the time and were relegated again. In 1961/62 , Csernai scored the 1-1 equalizer in the last minute of the last game of the season at Viktoria Aschaffenburg , which saved the club from relegation to the third division. This goal was very similar to the famous 1966 Wembley goal , and Csernai himself always had strong doubts as to whether the ball was really in the goal. He stayed with the Kickers until the end of the 1964/65 season, for which he scored eleven goals in 113 league games. During his time in Stuttgart, he also opened the gourmet restaurant “Puszta” there and operated a garage as a tenant.

In 1965/66 he joined the lower-class Swiss club Blau-Weiss Zürich at short notice . Mainly, however, he used this stay in Switzerland to acquire his trainer diploma at the Swiss Federal University of Sports in Magglingen .

Trainer

First steps in the second division

During his studies at the Sports University in Cologne , Csernai trained the Bergische Verein TuS Lindlar in the district class Middle Rhine in the 1967/68 season . In 1968 he took up the position of coach at Wacker 04 Berlin in the second-rate Regionalliga Berlin . In the two seasons he reached a 4th and a 5th place in the table with the team . He then coached the second-rate southern regional division SSV Reutlingen 05 for a year , with whom he only reached 15th place ; Reutlingen had finished 11th and 10th in the previous two years.

From 1971 to 1972 he coached the Belgian first division club Royal Antwerp , where he had to give way prematurely to Eddy Wauters .

Association trainer in North Baden

He then returned to Germany and in 1973 became the coach of the Badischer Fußballverband , where he spent the next four years and recorded his first major success as a coach. In the national cup of the DFB , known as the amateur country cup , he met in the final with his North Baden selection on the selection of the Lower Rhine Football Association . The game ended 1-1. The Niederrhein could no longer muster a full team for the due replay, so the cup and title went to the selection trained by Csernai.

Assistant trainer in Frankfurt and Munich

On July 1, 1977, he became assistant coach of Gyula Lóránt at the Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt . As a Hungarian national player in the 1950s, Lóránt also took part in the 1954 World Cup final in Bern. Eintracht was known as a capricious diva who was repeatedly traded as a title contender, but regularly disappointed these expectations. Lóránt also had no title to show. The clubs he coached were mostly mediocre; A fifth place with 1. FC Kaiserslautern was his greatest success.

Lóránt, who had only been with Eintracht since November 1976, was back in the past a year later. On November 26, 1977, Eintracht defeated FC Bayern Munich 4-0. At this point in time Bayern were relegated and Frankfurt in 8th place. Bayern and Eintracht agreed on the unusual maneuver of swapping coaches. The "soccer professor " Dettmar Cramer went to the Main metropolis, Lóránt and his assistant came to the Bavarian capital. At the end of the season Bayern were in 12th place - their worst finish to date - and the “Adler” came in seventh.

With the start of the new season Paul Breitner returned to Bayern Munich. Together with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge , Branko Oblak , Klaus Augenthaler and a few others, Bayern had a sizable team. They sought to catch up with their great successes; they won their last championship in 1974.

Under Lóránt, FC Bayern Munich had begun to switch from man coverage to area coverage ; After Eintracht Frankfurt, Bavaria was the second Bundesliga team to take this step. At the beginning it was anything but smooth, and after the first half of the season Lóránt was dismissed. The spirited head coach also struggled with an image problem. He used the physical means available to him to sell a television camera team. When a 7-1 defeat in Düsseldorf was followed by a home defeat against Hamburger SV , his days were numbered.

Success at FC Bayern Munich

Pál Csernai took over his interim position on the coaching bench. President Wilhelm Neudecker - a friend of “discipline and order”, according to club manager Robert Schwan - actually wanted to sign Max Merkel as the new head coach . However, this was rejected by the team because of its image as a high-handed grinder ; she gave preference to the previous assistant coach. Finally there was a vote on the return flight from an away game, in which the team clearly spoke out in favor of Csernai. The whole affair took place in public and was even the top news of the Tagesschau - at a time when sports coverage was not yet a regular part of the television news.

After this “revolution”, Neudecker resigned from the head of FC Bayern Munich after 17 years, after having signed the contract with Csernai as the last official act. At the end of the season Bayern won in the Volksparkstadion against the new champions Hamburger SV and finished fourth. Even during the season, the legendary Gerd Müller left the club after Csernai had replaced him on February 3, 1979 in the 1: 2 defeat in Frankfurt in the 82nd minute.

At the end of his first full season as head coach, Bayern were German champions for the first time in six years. Only two years after the Hungarian started his Bundesliga career in an assistant role in Frankfurt, he was widely respected as a successful innovator. FC Bayern played splendidly with the spatial coverage refined by Csernai, the "Pál system" worked.

He also led Bayern to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup that same season . Bayern's opponent was Eintracht Frankfurt . The Hessians, meanwhile supervised by Friedel Rausch , lost 2-0 in Munich, but won the second leg in extra time 5-1 and in the end also the title in the two finals against Borussia Mönchengladbach that were held at the time .

In the 1980/81 season the title was defended . Again the club reached a European semi-final. After a 0-0 draw at Liverpool's Anfield Road , the English took the lead ten minutes before the end of the second leg. Bayern only came to equalize through Karl-Heinz Rummenigge , and Liverpool FC reached the final due to the away goals rule , in which the English team prevailed against Real Madrid .

Expectations were also high for the 1981/82 season , but it should only be enough for a success in the DFB Cup . In a big Bavarian final, 1. FC Nürnberg was defeated in a dramatic match. In the first half, Bayern Munich were already 2-0 down; After an impressive race to catch up, he won 4-2, with Dieter Hoeneß making the decision in the 89th minute. He had suffered a head injury and therefore provided a turban-like , blood-smeared head bandage for the lasting memory of this endgame. In the championship it was only enough for third place; That year, Hamburger SV dominated under the legendary “coach world champion”, Ernst Happel . The advance into the final of the European championship in Rotterdam raised hopes . Bayern played superior, but in the end Aston Villa won the title with a goal from Peter Withe .

In the following season, FC Bayern Munich soon fell back in the Bundesliga and dropped out of the cup early. In the European Cup Winners' Cup , the eventual winner of a European Cup competition again prepared FC Bayern Munich for the end. This time it was FC Aberdeen , coached by Alex Ferguson , who prevailed in the quarter-finals .

At this point the trainer already had an image problem with the silk scarf: Csernai was generally thought to be arrogant; the main sponsors didn't like that either. They separated before the end of the season, and Csernai's assistant Reinhard Saftig took over for the remaining games. In the following season, Udo Lattek and with him the success returned to the Isar .

A coach's odyssey

After leaving FC Bayern Munich, Csernai took over the Greek first division club PAOK Saloniki . He already met his previous employer in the second round of the UEFA Cup. Both games ended 0-0 and a dramatic penalty shoot-out developed in which Bayern had the upper hand with 9: 8. For them, however, the end came in the next round - and again it was the eventual cup winner who stood in the way of Bayern - this time Tottenham Hotspur from London . Csernai ended the season without a title, PAOK finished fifth, left Greece after just one season and joined Benfica Lisbon , a club that had had good experiences with coaches from Hungary (e.g. Béla Guttmann and Lajos Baróti ).

Benfica won the Portuguese Cup with a 3-1 win in the final against FC Porto . Since Csernai soon lost any authority with the Portuguese record champions' players, the line-up and route for the final were already determined by leading players such as Carlos Manuel and Pietra . After the official end of the season, Csernai's term of office also officially ended. In the league, Benfica had to be modest with third place; in the previous year, the championship had been won under Swedish coach Sven-Göran Eriksson .

The next engagement led Csernai back to the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund . With the ailing Westphalia at the time, however, he was unable to provide any noteworthy impetus. He was dismissed two game days before the end of the season, and the black-yellows escaped relegation in the end as 16th.

Already at the end of September Csernai replaced Yilmaz Yücetürk and the interim coach Birol Pekel, who had only jumped in for one game, at Fenerbahçe SK in Istanbul . He stayed in office until the end of the season, but only a disappointing 8th place jumped out for the traditional club, which was spoiled for success - one of the worst placements in the club's history.

When Frankfurter Eintracht was in third from last place after eight match days under Karl-Heinz Feldkamp with only five points, they were looking for a "firefighter". In the eyes of the club's management, Csernai was the right person. With the Frankfurt team weakened by the departure of his compatriot Lajos Détári and other important players, Csernai got just six points from the first nine games and the team only improved to 15th place, that was not enough. For the second half took Jörg Berger Csernais a place. In the end, the “moody diva” was 16th again, but was spared a descent. Berger led the club to a UEFA Cup place the following season.

Csernai paused for almost a year before he led a club through the second half of the season, the traditional Swiss club Young Boys Bern , where he replaced the Swede Tord Grip . He only led YB in 8th place; the club did not continue working with him.

In November 1990 he took over the position of Werner Fuchs at Hertha BSC . After 13 matchdays, the Berliners were only five points behind in the last place in the table. Csernai achieved a respectable success in his first game when he scored 0-0 against his former Bavarians in the Olympic Stadium. This was followed by a 4: 1 away win at 1. FC Nürnberg , but that was the end of the success. In the next three games there were two more draws. After a 0: 3 on the 20th matchday at Karlsruher SC , Csernai had to leave. Peter Neururer and Karsten Heine for the last three match days took just four more points with the largely nameless Berliners, and the club was relegated from the Bundesliga for the fourth time.

After another, longer break, Csernai was finally committed by the North Korean Football Association (Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk Ch'ukku Hyŏphwi) to lead the national team to the 1994 World Cup in the USA. But this failed in the qualification .

At the end of his career, Csernai returned briefly to his home country Hungary and coached the first division club Soproni EMDSZ LC , today's FC Sopron , from October 1994 to April 1995 . Here, too, Csernai was unable to convey any decisive impulses; The team from the city near Lake Neusiedl was relegated as bottom of the table .

successes

Old and new homeland - Budapest.

Others

In 1996 the die-hard bachelor and music lover settled in Budapest again; there he lived in the XI. District near the Danube. Numerous memorabilia such as pennants on the walls documented a highly interesting career, although in the end it lagged behind its potential. Year after year he returned to the site of his greatest triumphs in Munich to watch a Bundesliga match.

literature

  • Matthias Weinrich: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 3: 35 years of the Bundesliga. Part 1. The founding years 1963–1975. Stories, pictures, constellations, tables. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89784-132-0 .
  • Jürgen Bitter : Germany's football. The encyclopedia. Sportverlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-328-00857-8 .
  • Kicker special issue: 40 years of the Bundesliga. Olympia, ISSN  1612-0116 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/591548/artikel_pal-csernai-ist-tot.html
  2. ↑ http://www.dw.de/bayerns-meistertrainer-pal-csernai-ist-tot/a-17061653
  3. ^ Glorioso Benfica
  4. ↑ Cologne Fenerbahçeliler Derneği ( Memento from July 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  5. ↑ rsssf.com: 1994 World Cup, 1994 qualification
  6. ↑ rsssf.com: Game details
personal data
SURNAME Csernai, Pál
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian football player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Pilis , Hungary
DATE OF DEATH September 1st 2013