Dárdai: Take offense, but football requires quality mentality and career

The guests of the two-day Sportforum Hungary organized in the Puskás Arena were three Hungarian coaches who recently played in the major leagues. László Bölöni played 501 games in the French league, Pál Dárdai coached Hertha BSC three times, Zsolt Lőw knows the Englishman intimately as well as the French and German leagues, he won the Champions League as Chelsea’s second coach . He played the final with PSG and the semi-final with Bayern Munich.

They shared the experiences they had gained abroad in previous years and decades. What they have in common is that their soccer socialization took place in the major leagues.

Bölöni began by saying that everyone knows football, so maybe even the three of them. Lőw opened by saying that he felt for himself how deep Hungarian football was, that now they have recovered some of their losses, that the national team took part in a Championship of Europe three times in a row, ending the team’s 14-game unbeaten streak. in June attracted attention across Europe. Dárdai said that the infrastructure is available here, and the country can be proud of this if we look around the area. He is happy that a lot of country fans go to the matches of the national team, they don’t want to give up their seats because they get something for it. It is, on the other hand, a bit urgent, because the national team must also think about the time after Péter Gulácsi and Willi Orbán, and it is not enough if only the MLSZ does this, the clubs must also be more diligent .

“Do not be offended, in addition to diligence, you also need a good mind, somehow reaching into the system at the level of the children, because the period 9-13 years is the golden age of learning, and not it is not enough. that the talented children come together once a month because they are called by the MLSZ, and they cheer for football. The physical education teachers with a big heart must also contribute, Dominik Szoboszlai, Roland Sallai’s father added theirs, my three sons are not so stupid either. In Szolnok, Miskolc, Szeged, everywhere you need someone to put in the work, without a quality role, it won’t work.”

Bölöni, who is 71, made a joke about this: what would have happened if Dárda’s children had worked hard. Then he started a real train of thought.

“The profession should work. The French, when they were more interested in cycling than football, asked the question, what do we not know. Because that’s what they wanted to learn. The club’s technical leaders have always been big thinkers, including Temesvár-born István Kovács, who won the European Championship with Ajax. They started it. The academies have been created by the need for quality for 45 years in the French. At the same time, the Eastern Bloc was opposed to trying to compete in the 90s, but the state no longer supports it, the military no longer exists, but in the meantime member foot has turned into a business in the West. Our garden is beautiful, beautiful, but it is not taken care of while the latest machines are working over there. When the weaknesses of French football were noted, they came to the conclusion that where there is less money, there should be ideas, and then there will be money. “

He also said that he watched with his mouth open when one of the Red Bull teams was training in Qatar (and he was working there and watching them out of curiosity). The principle that everyone is responsible for everything, especially when it comes to getting the ball back, has caught on.

Since Zsolt Lőw was employed by Red Bull at the time, he took the floor in such a way that he was criticized at home when he went to the third division Hoffenheim, because he was not ready and hit him in the heart. Little by little, he was told that his career was over. On the other hand, he went to play in the third division at the persuasion of a great thinker, Ralf Rangnick, and his critics who began to die when they were promoted to the second division, and when they finished in the top league and even at first, there suddenly he had many friends from home.

He admitted that he was lucky to be next to Rangnick, who later looked at his human qualities as well as his coaches, and offered him a job in Salzburg.

“First, we drew the exercises in a checkered notebook, what should be done in the attack and then in the counter. We wrote ten, then twenty, and tied them together. We’ve seen these in digital form recently, but now they’re in e-book form. After my six years there remained complete professional material, which could be used by anyone who would not have arrived until after my arrival. The physical memory remained there.

Every Hungarian club can implement it, knowledge can be gathered, discussions between each other are also the basis of this, and the basic knowledge can be improved year after year. This can be called an identity, a cornerstone. The club is not based on having a nice stadium, but on identity.

What Salzburg did can be an example to follow at home, even if they were badly beaten in the Champions League on Tuesday.

Dárdai talked about how the distance has changed the most compared to when he was playing football and when he became a coach. And at this higher speed, errors had to be corrected as well. The speed of regeneration is also different.

“In the end, quality wins, and this is decided at a young age. At the age of 15, a child already has muscles and the ability to play when he enters the academy. To fill a gap, you can no longer teach football. You can train him, but he won’t be a good player, believe me. You can try.”

Bölöni agreed that speed is also important when making decisions. At one time, technology was the talent, then everyone realized that you also have to run and think. However, not everyone can think, which is why we need leaders.

“But the training is led by the coach, he is the leader. You must be able to train this head, the request of this head must be unquestionable. I don’t know where the idea comes from, whether it’s definitely in our genes, maybe a lot of people will be able to put the ball on their nose and go around the table with it. Militancy, if it does not flow from within, if you do not have this internal engine, it will be more difficult to develop. The players ask the coach, what the coach takes out of them. If you don’t want to join the line, you stand aside. The luxury has to come from the coaches and from those who appoint the coach.”

He gave a practical example of what could be false. He watched 15-17-year-old Hungarian players abroad a few years ago, some came on as a substitute for 30 minutes, and asked himself what the boy did that day to improve. “Nothing. He didn’t improve anything that day, and because it was the day before the game and the day after the game, he didn’t get the same intensity of training, not the kind of load that he needed going forward. “

The moderator, György Szöllősi, asked when they would put the knowledge they had gained to use at home and send it to the service of Hungarian football. Dárdai replied that his children would be in the national team.

According to Lőw, it is their duty to pass on their knowledge, and this has been true for the last ten years as well. They are very cheap, because they never ask for money, the former club, Újpest, cannot ask for something that will refuse them.

“But I see expensive tools. They already have all the equipment, they shop like it’s the most important thing. Measurement is important, but so is understanding it and how it relates to the next measurement.

Everything is based on knowledge, the right amount of knowledge. We can’t follow the big clubs because they play on a completely different pitch, so even though I’m talking about Bayern, they’re not the same.”

Bölöni admitted that he regrets that he did not act for the success of Hungarian football, but only against it. Unfortunately for Hungarian football, and fortunately for himself, he was even successful. With this, he mentioned back that in 2001, under his leadership, Romania beat the Hungarian team 2-0 in Bucharest.

“I will try to correct the mistake, I support Hungarian football hard in every game. I had a situation, I didn’t use it well enough. One thinks what one can do when one is invited. That, however, hasn’t happened since then, so I don’t even have to think about it,” he concluded.

The current president of MLSZ, Sándor Csányi, wanted to see the Transylvanian legend who won the EC at the head of the national team after the 8-1 defeat in Amsterdam, but he waited too long in the fall of 2013, so as -he closed on Pintér Cánain. Then came Dárdai and established a completely different level of success.