A post for every day.
1) Do you think your World Cup soccer team will ever reclaim its former glory?
Short answer: no.
A bit longer. Those days are gone. Two reasons. 1) International football changed. Small nations are occasionally may have successes (or small successes) like Croatia
finishing 2nd in WC2018, but money matters more than ever. 2) Our system is rotten to the core. For my personal experience Hungarian football declining rapidly since 1986
(last time we attended World Cup, we had a pretty good team, but due to stupid management we failed there horribly). Older and more experienced people would say
that it is declining since Marseilles (1969 - we lost against Czechoslovakia to 4-1 in a last playoff fought for participating in WC1970), while others would say that we must
go back even further in time to find where did things gone awry. Losing the WC final in 1954 was a huge disappointment. Also, the political system affected sports strongly...
...affected... what an euphemism! Controlled it totally. Popular football clubs got forcibly renamed (to try to erase their identity). Ferencváros (FTC, affectionately named
'Fradi' by supporters, which is a shorter version for 'Franzstadt' - means Ferencváros in german) seemed the more independent, thus meant the greatest danger to
communist ideology, so they tried to sabotage the team with various methods. "Hey, you have a very good player? OK, we draft the guy to the military!" Which meant
that the player had to play at rival Bp. Honvéd (means Budapest Patriots), since it was the team of the military. Another fun fact: there was another team, Újpesti Dózsa*
which was favored by the regime, since it was the team of the ministry for home affairs. People sometimes called this team "cop team", for very good reasons.
(*Dózsa of Újpest. Dózsa was a historical figure very much liked by the communists, and Újpest is a district of Budapest.) Just take a look at league winners in this period,
you'll see the name of these two teams quite frequently. And a really painful aspect: spies were everywhere. In teams. Even in the national team. After 1989
(end of communism - on paper) we never had a full list about these guys (who were well-known sportsman, actors, singers, artists etc.), but there were some really
shocking reveals. You may wonder how can you persuade someone to be a spy for the regime. "Hey, dude? You are a member of the national team... now. Wanna stay?
Or wanna disappear and play in the team of a small village for the rest of your life? OK, now we understand each other. Give us some info about your teammates,
what is their political opinion, what do they say in the dressing room, are they good communists, do they get some hard currency when playing in other countries etc."
And they had to do it for years. Sometimes they tried to fool their officers, giving only superficial information.
Another important thing is that corruption was rampant. Lots of fixed games, which looked very entertaining for the masses. No one really knows how many matches
were rigged, but it is a well-known fact, since veteran players often mentioning various games, events. It was an everyday thing. There weren't real scandals - until
the 80s. Kinda ironic how everyone closed their eyes until that moment. And I guess we needed the fiasco of 1986 to get to that point.
No one really cared about the problems since the decline wasn't fast, it sped up visibly only after 1986. We had quality players in the 60s, 70s, Albert Flórián even won
the Golden Ball in 1967. 90s, 2000s were horrible. We were constantly hoping, the cycle looked like this: preliminary group stage starts - A New Hope, after a few
matches - The Empire Strikes Back, and no friggin' Return of the Jedi, we were always denied. Had some really good players, like Gera Zoltán, others had some successes,
too, but as a team the only achievement we can muster was EC2016. (And let's not forget that thanks to Platini the bar was lowered, 24 teams instead of 16.)
And the present? The problem is that some old communists (and their thinking) haven't been erased. They are still there, tainting everything. Same shit in the last 30 years.
Quality matters only if you have some good and important friends (nepotism is very strong in Hungary - sadly). We have youth academies, but often not the talented little
fellow gets picked, but another lucky guy from a wealthy family whose parents are making the coach/club change his/its mind... We had shiny new stadiums thanks to Orbán & friends,
but what for? When things go bad in a brothel you should change the ladies, not the furniture...
That's why I don't have high hopes about our national team. The worst thing is that when we have even the smallest success, politics is always there to show itself,
saying (physically or just acting like) "you see? that's why we pouring money into football, that is our success, too!". Makes me sick and kinda schizophrenic: if we lose -
it feels bad*, if we win - politicians feel reinforced. (*Often it isn't bad anymore, the amount of beating we had to suffer, made me kinda numb...)
2) Any fun phrases, facts, or oddities you can teach me to impress my Hungarian neighbours?
Uh, next time, it is almost 4AM here.
Poll
