Árpád Weisz

Matteo Mariani, a Sky Italia journalist, wrote is his book about the famous Hungarian manager “the fact is that sixty years after his death, all traces of Weisz had been lost. Yet he had won more than anyone else in his era, a glorious era of football, he had won league titles and cups. Far more than the coaches so acclaimed today. [...] Would it be conceivable that one of them could suddenly disappear ? It happened to him”. 

Source Wikipedia

Árpád Weisz was born on April 16, 1896, in Solt, south Hungary. He fought in the first world war, was made prisoner in Italy and held in a Trapani war camp. When he went back home, he played four years for Törekvés Sportegyesület from the town of Kőbánya, currently a district of Budapest. In 1923 he signed for Maccabi Brno, the Jewish club of Brno, at that time in Czechoslovakia. 

In those years he also played for Hungary earning six caps and was part of the team that took part at the Olympic Games of Paris 1924 even though he never played. They reached the Round of 16 after thrashing Poland 5-0 but surprisingly lost 8-0 against Egypt. At that time the national team was managed by an antisemite and since most of the Hungarians were Jewish, they lost on purpose. 

In 1924 he came back to Italy and played a season for Alessandria before joining Inter. After 11 appearances and three goals he suffered a serious knee injury which forced him to retire. He was remembered as a very fast and skillful winger.

At this point he became a manager and was assistant at Alessandria in 1926. That same year he became head coach at Inter. In his first year the Nerazzurri won their group and came fifth in the final round robin. In his second, Inter qualified for the final group but came seventh. He then left to coach Haladás in Hungary only to return in 1929 for the first Serie A league. Inter won the scudetto with a two-point lead over Genova. He was 34 years of age and to this day he is the youngest foreigner to have won the Italian league (the youngest is Armando Castellazzi who won with Inter in 1938, after having been a player under Weisz). In the meantime, he was forced to change his surname to Veisz due to the fascist laws and Inter also had to change and became Ambrosiana. The following season the Nerazzurri came fifth and he moved to Bari where he managed to obtain a difficult survival in Serie A thanks to a final playoff against Brescia. Back in Milan in 1932, the club came second twice and reached the final of the Central European Cup. 

After a year in Serie B with Novara, in 1935 he became manager of Bologna substituting Lajos Kovács in January. The team was in a spot of bother but managed to reach a sixth place finish. In 1935-36 Bologna won the scudetto using just 14 players (a record still standing today and probably impossible to beat) and won it again the season after. The Rossoblu also won the prestigious Paris Expo Trophy beating Chelsea 4-1 in the final. In 1937-38 Bologna came fifth.

Due to the fascist racial laws of 1938, he was forced to leave the country. The laws stated that all foreigners who had arrived in Italy after 1919 had to leave. He first moved to Paris and then settled in the Netherlands where he became manager of Dordrecht. In his first year the team managed to avoid relegation and in the next two seasons they reached fifth places. 

Everything changed in 1942. Nazi Germany had conquered the country and in August 1942 his entire family were arrested. On October 2 the Weisz family were moved to Auschwitz. They never returned. His wife and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers and died on October 7. He was stationed in Cosel, Poland, for 15 months before being sent to Auschwitz. He died in the gas chambers on January 31, 1944.

For 60 years nobody spoke about him, until in 2007 Marani wrote a biography of the great manager and people started to remember him. Since then, there have been numerous plaques placed in the Stadiums of Bologna and Novara as well as a Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stone) outside the house where he used to live in Bologna. In Bari there is a street named after him. He also figures in a mural on the outside wall at Stamford Bridge, part of Chelsea's 'Say No to Antisemitism' campaign. Weisz features alongside Julius Hirsch and Ron Jones.

Football owes a lot to Árpád Weisz.

Sources:

Wikipedia