Béla Guttmann (; 27 January 1899 – 28 August 1981) was a Hungarian footballer and coach. He was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and was Jewish. He was deported by the Nazis to a Nazi slave labor camp where he was tortured; he survived the Holocaust.
Before the war, he played as a midfielder for MTK Hungária FC, SC Hakoah Wien, and several clubs in the United States. Guttmann also played for the Hungary national football team, including at the 1924 Olympic Games.
Guttmann coached in ten countries from 1933 to 1974, and won ten national championships and, most notably, two back-to-back European Cups with Benfica. He also coached the national teams of Hungary and Austria, having also coached club football in the Netherlands, Italy, Brazil, Uruguay, and Portugal. He is perhaps best remembered as a coach and manager after the war of A.C. Milan, São Paulo FC, FC Porto, Benfica, and C.A. Peñarol. His greatest success came with Benfica when he guided them to two successive European Cup wins, in 1961 and in 1962.
He pioneered the 4–2–4 formation along with Márton Bukovi and Gusztáv Sebes, forming a triumvirate of radical Hungarian coaches, and is also credited with mentoring Eusébio. However, throughout his career he was never far from controversy. Widely travelled, as both a player and coach, he rarely stayed at a club longer than two seasons, and was quoted as saying "the third season is fatal". He was sacked at Milan while they were top of Serie A, and he walked out on Benfica after they reportedly refused a request for a pay rise, allegedly leaving the club with a curse.
Early life
Guttmann was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and was Jewish. His parents, Ábrahám and Eszter were dance teachers. He became a trained dance instructor himself, at 16 years of age. He obtained a Psychology degree in Austria.
Playing career
Club career
Guttmann was a prominent member of the MTK Hungária FC team of the early 1920s. Playing halfback or center half alongside Gyula Mándi, he helped MTK win Hungarian League titles in 1920 and 1921.
In 1922 Guttmann moved to Vienna, Austria, to escape the antisemitism in Hungary of the Admiral Horthy regime, as during 1919 to 1921 counter-revolutionary soldiers carried out repressive violence to destroy any supporters of Hungary's short-lived Soviet republic and its Red Terror. Several hundreds of people were killed, many of them were Jewish in a campaign known as the White Terror, orchestrated by the Hungarian nationalist government. In Vienna he joined the all-Jewish club SC Hakoah Wien and played for them as their centre back from 1922 to 1926 and in 1933. For the team's shirts, they wore the blue and white of the Zionist national movement, and a large Star of David was their badge. In 1925 he won another league title when Hakoah won the Austrian League. In April 1926 the SC Hakoah Wien squad sailed to New York to begin a ten-match tour of the United States. On 1 May a crowd of 46,000 watched them play an American Soccer League XI at the Polo Grounds, a US record for a soccer game until 1977. The ASL team won 3–0. At least six of the Hakoah players were later killed in the Holocaust.
Following the tour Guttmann, who was Hakoah's most prominent player, and several of his teammates decided to stay on in the US. After initially playing for Brooklyn Wanderers, he signed for the New York Giants of the American Soccer League (ASL), playing 83 games and scoring two goals over two seasons. In 1928, the Giants were suspended from the ASL as part of the "Soccer War", a dispute pitting the ASL and United States Soccer Federation.
Guttmann and the Giants joined the Eastern Soccer League, but he soon moved to New York Hakoah, a team made-up of former SC Hakoah Wien players, including Rudolph Nickolsburger. In 1929 he helped them win the U.S. Open Cup (then known as National Challenge Cup).
After a merger with Brooklyn Hakoah, they became the Hakoah All-Stars in 1930. In the fall of 1930 Guttmann rejoined the Giants, now known as the New York Soccer Club, but was back at the All-Stars in the spring of 1931 where he finished his career as a player. When he retired as a player he was 32 years old, and had played 176 ASL games.
As well as playing football, while in New York, Guttmann also taught dance, bought into a speakeasy, invested in the stock market, and almost lost everything after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.