Pál Csernai
Pál Csernai [ pa ː l ʧɛrnɒ.i ] ( born October 21, 1932 in Pili, † September 1, 2013 in Budapest) was a Hungarian football player and coach.
The two-time Hungarian national team as coach led Bayern Munich return to the top. He won the DFB Cup with the club in 1980 and 1981, the German Championship and 1982. In the same year he led Bayern to the final of the European Cup of Champions. With SL Benfica he won the 1985 Portuguese Cup competition.
In Germany Csernai football is historically important as a pioneer of today usual zone defense. His younger brother Tibor Csernai was also football players.
- 2.1 Coaches
Career
Player
From the Youth Department of Vasas Budapest Csepel emerged, he moved in 1948 into the first team, for which he was active until 1955. In 1955 he had two appearances in the senior team.
Like many other major Hungary of his era, he left his homeland in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising. About Switzerland he came to Germany and joined to the second half of the season 1956/57, the Karlsruher SC, the reigning Cup winner and runner-up, in the Oberliga Süd on. By the end of the following season, he scored in 28 league games six goals and said goodbye to the South German championship in 1958. The season 1958/59 he spent at FC La Chaux -de-Fonds in Switzerland, with whom he seventh in the National League A (then the highest division) was.
From 1959 to 1965, he played for just ascended again to the Oberliga Stuttgarter Kickers. In his first season there, the Kickers were repulsed Last of the then world-class league and were relegated again. 1961/62 achieved Csernai in the last minute of last season's game at Viktoria Aschaffenburg the 1-1 draw that kept the club from relegation to the third division. This gate had great resemblance to the famous Wembley goal of 1966, and Csernai itself was always entertaining serious doubts as to whether the ball was really in the target. He remained until the end of the season 1964/65 at the Kickers, where he scored eleven goals in 113 league games. During his time in Stuttgart, he opened there and the gourmet restaurant " Puszta " and operating as a tenant a garage.
1965/66 he joined the short term at the unterklassigen Swiss club Blau-Weiss Zurich. In the main, he took advantage of this stay in Switzerland but in order for sports to earn his coaching diploma in Magglingen at the Federal University.
Coach
Getting Started in the Second League
While studying at the Sports University in Cologne Csernai trained in the season 1967/68 the Berg TuS Lindlar in the district Class Middle Rhine. In 1968, he joined the coaching job at Wacker 04 Berlin in the subprime Regional Berlin. In the two seasons he reached there with the team a fourth and a fifth place in the table. He then trained for a year also the second-class South division side SSV Reutlingen 05, which he reached only number 15; Reutlingen was previously become the 11th and 10th in the two years.
From 1971 to 1972 he coached the Belgian first division club Royal Antwerp FC, where he prematurely Eddy Wauters had to give way.
Head coach in northern Baden
He then returned to Germany and became coach in 1973 of the Baden Football Association, where he spent the next four years and recorded his first major success as a coach. In the countries of the DFB Cup, known as amateur Länderpokal, he met in the final with his northern Baden selection on the selection of the Lower Rhine Football Association. The game ended 1-1. For mellow replay the Lower Rhine could muster no more complete team, so that trophy and title went to the trained Csernai of selection.
Assistant coach in Frankfurt and Munich
On 1 July 1977 he was assistant coach of Gyula Lóránt the Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt. Lóránt had participated as a Hungarian national team of the 1950s and the World Cup final of 1954 in Bern. The harmony was known as capricious diva, who has repeatedly acted as title aspirant, but these expectations regularly disappointed. Also Lóránt had to show no title. The clubs he has coached, included mainly for mediocrity; a fifth place with the 1st FC Kaiserslautern was his greatest success.
Lóránt, who was himself only since November 1976 concord, was there a year later already past. On November 26, 1977, the Eintracht defeated Bayern Munich 4-0. At this time, the Bavarians were the relegation zone and Frankfurt ranked 8th Bavaria and Eintracht agreed to the unusual maneuver a coach exchange. The " football professor " Dettmar Cramer went to the Main metropolis, Lóránt and his assistant came in the Bavarian capital. At the end of the season, Bayern were in 12th place - her until then worst financial statements - and the " Eagles" were seventh.
With the start of the new season Paul Breitner returned to Bayern. Together with Karl -Heinz Rummenigge, Branko Oblak, Klaus Thaler eyes and a few others had the Bavarians so together a considerable force. They sought to connect to their great successes; their last championship they had celebrated in 1974.
Under Lóránt had begun at Bayern order to move from man coverage to zone defense; Bavaria was after the second Bundesliga Eintracht Frankfurt team that took this step. At the beginning it was anything but round, and after the first round Lóránt was dismissed. The spirited head coach had to contend with an image problem. So he drove sometimes even with the physical means at its disposal a camera crew of television. As a 1:7 defeat in Dusseldorf also followed by a home defeat against Hamburger SV, were numbered his days.
Successes with FC Bayern Munich
Pál Csernai then took over on an interim basis its position on the bench. President Wilhelm Neudecker - a friend of " law and order " according to the club manager Robert Swan - actually wanted to commit as new head coach Max Merkel. This rejected the team but because from his image as a konditionsbolzender grinder; she gave the former assistant coach preference. Finally it came on the flight back from an away game at the ballot, in which the team clearly arguing for Csernai. The whole affair played out in public and was even the top story from the news - at a time when sports coverage was not yet a regular part of television news.
After this " revolution " Neudecker resigned after 17 years of the tip of the FC Bayern after he had virtually still be made out as the last official act of the contract with Csernai. At the end of the season, Bayern defeated in Volksparkstadion the new master Hamburger SV and closed still from fourth. Even during the season, the legendary Gerd Müller left the club after Csernai had replaced him on February 3, 1979 ( 21 Matchday) in the 1-2 defeat in Frankfurt in 82 minutes.
At the end of his first full season as head coach of Bayern for the first time in six years, were German champions. Only two years after the Hungarian had started his Bundesliga career in an assistant role in Frankfurt, he was widely respected as a successful innovator. Bayern played with the refined Csernai of zone defense on gorgeous, the " Pal " system worked.
He led the Bavarians in the same season and the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, which was contested that season exclusively by German teams. Bavaria's opponent was Eintracht Frankfurt. The now managed by Friedel Rausch Hesse lost in Munich 0:2 but won the return game in overtime 5-1 and at the end of the title in the playoffs against Borussia Mönchengladbach.
In the season 1980/81 title defense succeeded. Once again, the club also reached a European semi-final. After a 0-0 draw at Anfield by Liverpool, the English went ten minutes before the end of the game back in the lead. The Bavarians came only to compensate by Karl -Heinz Rummenigge, and Liverpool reached the final on the away goals rule, in which the English team against Real Madrid prevailed.
For the season 1981/82, the expectations were high, but it should be enough just to be a success in the DFB Cup. In a large - Bavarian -finals of the 1st FC Nuremberg was defeated in a dramatic game. In the first half of Bayern was already back with 0:2; after an impressive comeback, he still won 4-2, with Dieter Hoeness in the 89th minute made everything clear. He had suffered a head injury and therefore provided with a turban -like, bloodied head bandage for the sustainable memory picture this ending. In the championship, but it was only enough for third place; in that year of Hamburger SV dominated the legendary " Champion of the coach," Ernst Happel. Hopes aroused the advance to the final of the European Champion Clubs' Cup in Rotterdam country. Bayern played superior, but in the end Aston Villa secured a goal by Peter Withe the title.
In the following season Bayern soon fell back into the Premier League and the Cup he left early. In Europe Cup Winners' Cup once again prepared the eventual winner of the European Cup competition Bayern Munich the corner. This time it was coached by Alex Ferguson Aberdeen FC, who won in the quarterfinals.
At this time the coach had with the silk scarf already has an image problem: Man held Csernai generally arrogant; also the main sponsors did not like that. Before the end of the season they parted, and Csernais assistant Reinhard Juicy took over for the remaining games. In the season it Udo Lattek returned and with it the success of the Isar back.
Odyssey of a trainer
After his departure from Bayern Munich Csernai took over the Greek first division club PAOK Salonika. Already in the second round of the UEFA Cup it came to clash with his former employer. Both games ended 0-0 and it developed into a dramatic penalty shoot-out, in which the Bayern 9-8 to keep the upper hand. But for them the end came in the next round - and it was again the later Cup winner, who stood in the way of the Bavaria - this time, Tottenham Hotspur from London. Csernai finished the season without a title, PAOK finished fifth, Greece left after just one season and joined Benfica on, a club that had made until then good experiences with coaches from Hungary (eg Béla Guttmann and Lajos Baróti ).
Benfica won the Portuguese Cup with a 3-1 victory in the final against FC Porto. Since Csernai but he soon lost all authority with the players of the Portuguese championship record, have already been set for the final preparation and of march by leading players such as Carlos Manuel and Pietra. After the official end of the season thus ended also officially Csernais tenure. In the league, Benfica had modestly in third place; in the previous year the championship had been won under the Swedish coach Sven -Goran Eriksson still.
The next engagement was Csernai back to the Bundesliga to Borussia Dortmund. At the time of his ailing Westphalia but even he could not contain any significant momentum. Two games before the end of the season he was released, and the black and yellow escaped at the end of the 16th barely escape relegation.
The end of September sparked Csernai at Fenerbahçe SK in Istanbul Yilmaz Yücetürk and the contracted only for a game interim coach Birol Pekel from. He remained until the end of the season in office, but it just jumped a disappointing 8th place for the success-spoiled giants out - one of the worst placements of the club's history.
As Eintracht Frankfurt with only five points was on the third to last place after eight games under Karl -Heinz Feldkamp, they sought a " fireman ". In the eyes of the club's management Csernai was the right thing. With the weakened by the departure of his compatriot of Lajos Détári and other important players frankfurters Csernai took just six points from their first nine games and the team improved only on rank 15, that was not enough. For the second round Jörg Berger Csernais took place. In the end, the " capricious Diva" back 16, a descent her remained spared. Berger led the club in the following season on a UEFA Cup place.
Csernai paused for nearly a year before he himself led a club through the second half, the traditional Swiss club Young Boys Bern, where he took over from Sweden Tord Grip. He led YB only ranked 8; The club continued working with him discontinued.
In November 1990, he took over at Hertha BSC the post by Werner Fuchs. The Berlin were after 13 games with only five points relegated to the last place. Csernai succeeded in his first game, a decent result, when he reached a 0-0 draw against his former Bayern in the Olympic Stadium. Then even still followed a 4-1 away success at the 1st FC Nuremberg, but that was the success already over. In the next three games still followed two draws. After a 0:3 on 20 Gameday at Karlsruher SC Csernai had to go again. Peter Neururer and for the last three games still Karsten Heine brought with the largely nameless Berliners just four more points, and the club was relegated for the fourth time in the Bundesliga from.
After a new, longer interruption Csernai finally the North Korean Football Association ( Choson Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk Ch'ukku Hyŏphwi ) was obliged to lead the national team to the World Cup finals in 1994 in the United States. But this failed to qualify.
At the end of his career Csernai returned briefly to his native Hungary back and trained from October 1994 to April 1995 the first league Soproni EMDSZ LC, today's FC Sopron. Again, could Csernai to convey any major impetus more; as Table the team got out of town from near the Lake Neusiedl.
After coaching career
Was 1996, the inveterate bachelor and music lovers again in Budapest down; there he lived in the XI. District near the Danube. Numerous memorabilia such as pennants on the walls documented a highly interesting, although at the end of remaining below their potential career. Year after year he returned again to Munich at the scene of his greatest triumphs back to watch a football game.