A magyar futball európai expanziója, avagy hogyan lettek tanítók a tanítottakból

Absztrakt

The aim of this study was to describe the process how Hungarian football players – who learned to play football prior to 1919 mainly from foreigner teams, coaches and players – passed over their expertise to foreigner players. Therefore, the keyquestions are how to learn playing football, how to pass over this profession, briefly, how to make a national football-team successful. Between the two World Wars more than half thousand Hungarian football players emigrated. The Hungarian football-team called MTK in Budapest — coached by Jimmy Hogan between 1915 and 1921— was one of the best teams in Europe after the World War I, and there were other prominent Hungarian teams as well. Hungarian players acquainted themselves very well with the so-called „Scotchstyle”, but the social and economical situation forced the players – who possessed exportable expertise - to leave the country. They arrived to Austria in 1919 and in 1924, right after the launch of the professional cup. They also played in the Zionist Makkabi Brno football-team in Czechoslovakia, that won against even Real Madrid, between 1922 and 1925 there were approximately 40 Hungarian players in this team. In the summer of 1924 and 1925 about fifty players departed to Italy, and they contributed to the strength of the Italian football that became one of the bests in Europe by the 1930’s. In 1926 the professional cup was launched in Hungary as well (i.e. players got salary from their club), therefore, only a few players left the country until 1930. In 1932 the French and the Swiss professional leagues attracted the Hungarian players, considering the difficult situation caused by the economical crisis: between 1932 and 1934 almost 100 Hungarian players immigrated to France. However, the new off-side rule introduced in 1926 affected significantly the system, the tactics and the style of the football. Hungarian players became old-fashioned, therefore they did not play an important role any more in France as they did earlier in Austria or in Italy.