Hogan, Guttmann, Bukovi, Hidegkuti... Shifty?

[ShiftyPowers]

Inspired by the incredible rise of Masopust's Dukla Prague, I have decided to try and do the same thing with the most important club that you have probably never heard of, MTK Budapest.

The club has an incredible history, starting in 1888 by friends in a Budapest coffee shop and like many top clubs such as Ajax, Bayern, and others, was initially a mostly Jewish club (you might be able to tell by the club Logo). MTK Budapest was the most successful club in Hungary in the amateur era, prior to World War II. They were managed through World War I by legendary English Manager Jimmy Hogan, widely considered to have brought football to the Continent and one of the legends of the game. When war broke out and he did not return to England he was called a traitor by the head of the English FA, and the bad blood never really went away. Hogan helped transform the footballing culture in central Europe, being instrumental in the Danubian School credited usually to Hugo Meisl, which is the style the Austrian Wunderteams played.

One of Hogan's players at MTK was a man called Bella Gutmann, a Hungarian Jew who probably needs no introduction in this forum. The greatest journeyman in the history of managing, Guttmann has tasted immense success, most notably winning 2 European Cups with Benfica and signing Eusebio out of Mozambique. In addition, Guttmann managed Ujpest, APOEL, AC Milan, Honved (when the team, including Puskas, defected to the west), Sao Paulo, Penarol, Porto, Panathinaikos, and Austria Wien, tasting success almost everywhere.

Marton Bukovi was the manager of MTK during the golden era of Hungarian football, when the Mighty Magyars were the best team in the world. Despite Honved having more star power (Puskas, Cocsis, Czibor, Bozsik), he nonetheless managed to win the Hungarian League twice in 1951 and 1953, and then won the league again in 1958 after Honved defected to the West. During his reign as manager, Hungary went Communist and MTK was the team of the Secret Police. He is credited by many with creating the 4-2-4 formation which was THE THING in the late 1950s. In fact, his pioneering use of the 4-2-4 saw Guttmann take the formation with him to Brazil, win the Sao Paulo state Championship in 1957, and influence Vicente Feola into using it with the Brazilian National Team in the 1958 World Cup. Most know what happened there.

One of Bukovi's best players was Nándor Hidegkuti, who introduced the deep-lying central forward playmaker to the world in two friendlies against England in 1953 and 1954. At the time, just about every team played a WM formation and man marked (Center Half on Center Forward, Fullbacks on Wingers, etc). Hidegkuti played center forward, but came deep, which pulled the english center half out of position so much that Hungary won these friendlies 6-3 at Wembley and 7-1 in Budapest, Hidegkuti scoring at Wembley inside 3 minutes, and basically ending the perception of English dominance on the sport. This was England's first loss on home soil to a foreign team. Later Hidegkuti managed HTK briefly, but had his biggest managerial success in 1961 when he won the Cup Winner's Cup with Fiorentina. He also won the Hungarian League in 1963 with Gyori. The MTK Stadium is named in his honor.

Also Henk ten Cate managed for a year winning the Cup. Whatever.

So that's it for the history of MTK; a club that positively helped shape the game a lot more than you probably realized. With this background, I am taking over MTK to return them to the glory they once had. Like Dukla, I'm much too impatient to do this honestly, so I have added a sugar daddy in the foreground and improved the training and youth facilities. Sue me. There is a restriction on only 5 Non-EU players in the match squad, which could pose an early problem because no EU player has any desire to join MTK.

LET'S GET IT ON!!!

 

[crswind17]

As a hungarian FM gamer, I can't miss this, good luck!

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Reason to love MTK #59: The stadium was used in the filming of epic movie Victory starring Sly Stallone and Pele.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

The first order of business was to change everything. None of the coaches were good enough to start what is going to be the best youth academy in the world. So I brought in coaches. Hungarian Imre Kenyeres is the new assistant manager, selected for his motivation and tactical knowledge so he can give team talks, handle the press, manage friendlies, and give good advice. Also in are the Englishmen Mark Chamberlain, John Murtough, and Tosh Farrell; Irishman Des McAleenan a great goalkeeping coach; Brazilians Rodrigo Chagas, Narciso, and Cassiano Luis.

Scouting was another problem, so I hired Englishman Barry Whitbread, who will be roaming in Eastern Europe, Brazilian Ticao who is scouting the Hungary U-19s, and Brazilian Juarez Fischer who is looking for young gems in his native land. I'm considering bringing another scout or two on to handle Africa.

As for the transfers, we had the issue that we can only name 5 Non-EU players in the squad for our domestic matches, so we had to make these players count. Virtually no one in Europe will come to Hungary, and the same can be said for the best South American Players, and even the top players from the Arab World, so we were forced to turn our attention south to Africa. The first transfer was Itumeleng Khune, the South African International and Kaiser Chiefs Keeper for 500k. While we were out looking at him, we liked what we saw, so we have also brought aboard his teammates Zimbabwean defensive midfielder Tinashe Nengomasha and South African International and World Cup goalscorer Siphiwe Tshabalala. With all 3 players in, hopefully there will be no problem settling.

We also brought in Angolan International Winger Job who looks to have some real potential especially in this league.

The final Non-EU purchase was Eliandro, a talented young striker who was in the Cruzeiro reserves. While he's never going to be a Brazilian International, I think he can certainly be a force in Hungary until our reputation gets high enough to attract a top replacement (or our excellent striker prospects emerge... more on them later).

With the attack, central midfield, and goalkeeping positions now relatively squared away, I had to scramble to find a competent EU defender. While this is clearly going to be the biggest hole in the team this season, we settled on 20 year old New Zealand international Tommy Smith from Ipswith Town who was born in England.

As far as the Hungarian players already in the squad, there are a few good ones, which is good because until our reputation gets much higher they will form the backbone of the squad:

Captain Jozsef Kanta appears to be the best player in the team by a wide margin. Talented attacking midfielder who will be asked to play a big role in the team this season behind the lone striker.

Andras Gal is a 20 year old defensive midfielder who will probably start the season partnering Nengomasha in the holding midfield roles.

Adrian Szekeres is very tall 21 year old right back who looks to have quality enough to be a top player at his position in this league. He was a member of the Hungary U-20 side that finished third in the 2009 U-20 World Cup. Can also play left back, which he probably will this season because I don't really have anyone else capable of playing the position.

Laszlo Suto is a 24 year old central defender who isn't great, but aside from the Kiwi is the best we've got.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

So not great; clearly the foreign players are going to have to carry a lot of weight, but some of them have such extreme quality and room to grow that hopefully they can take this club to the top of the league by themselves. There ARE some fantastic young players however.

First, is 18 year old striker Patrik Tischler, promoted by me from the reserves to the first team. Very quick player who has good off the ball movement, can dribble quite well, and isn't bad at finishing either. He will be the main attacking reserve should anyone get injured.

Zoltan Somogyi is a 16 year old striker who is big, stong, and has good technique. The season has not started yet, but in my opinion this kid looks to be the crown jewel of my youth system right now. My assistant not only considers him to have the potential to be better than everyone on the team, but he has more potential than anyone else's potential. Exciting. Needs better finishing though.

Tibor Kiprich is a 16 year old central defender who is big and a good tackler, but needs improvement in every other facet of his game. Slow, weak, not very smart, and a poor marker; despite potential matching Somogyi, he will need a lot more time before breaking into the first team.

Patrik Major is a 16 year old keeper with pretty good reflexes for a 16 year old and is considered to have the potential of Khune. Possible future Hungarian National Keeper? Who knows.

Those are the youth players I'm most excited about; rest assured that they will be getting very personalized schedules and close attention from the coaches.

We also have a long term affiliation with Liverpool, so hopefully we can get a few of their youth players in on loan from time to time.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

We played our first game, which was in an odd format: Hungarian League Cup with 3 team groups. Anyway, the important part wasn't the 3-0 victory, but rather that we were only adjudged to have played 1 Non-EU player. It seems like Africans don't count as Non-EU, at least in Hungary. Knowing this, I set out to improve the remaining weak spots in the squad.

Lima is an 18 year old Brazilian left back who will start for us and has a ways to go to realize his true potential.

Ze Vitor is an 18 year old defensive midfielder who looks like a very good all around player; solid, but unspectacular in any areas, but a lot of room for improvement.

Idrissa Coulibaly is a 22 year old defender and Malian National Team fringe member. Very good player and probably Euro League quality; short, but a good jumper.

And with those signings, barring an opportunity that we can't pass up before the signing deadline. Here is the squad to face the Hungarian League in year 1.

 

[Filipower]

You go girl!


Man I've been missing that spark of will to play the game, unfortunately.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

To the Winter Break

The season started out well in the league as we faced off against legendary club Honved who are also the current Hungarian Cup holders. I figured it would be a real test for my squad to see what they could do and I was not disappointed:

In the first half of the season our other two big games were the two biggest title challengers: Fehervar, which I THINK is called Videoton in real life right now who are currently top of the real life table, and Debrecen who are the defending champions. We were perhaps a little lucky that all three of these games were at home giving us a nice cushion going into the Winter Break.

We won on two penalties, which seems cheap, but we definitely had the better football and the three points were deserved IMO.

And against Debrecen, the last game before the break:

The biggest development of the first half of the season was that Tshabalala was out for about a month with an injury, so we had to go to a 4-4-2 diamond. And we were BRILLIANT. The problem is that we only have 2 good strikers, and I even had to use 18 year old Patrik Tischler to get the second. Tischler suffered an injury just after Tshabalala returned, which meant we had to go back to the defensive minded 4-2-3-1 that we've adopted.

Our two best players have been playmakers Job and Jozsef Kanta (Kanta in the 4-3-3, Job in the Diamond). Job has 7 goals and 10 assists in our 17 league games and Kanta has 8 goals and 7 assists. Beyond that everyone has been good, and I wouldn't consider anyone a flop aside from perhaps Tshabalala, but he's been good enough. Khune has been a rock at GK, except for an 84th minute goal he let in that went over his head after he only got a slight touch on it. However, that is the only time where I feel it has hurt us to have a keeper who is 5'8''.

Here is the table through 17 or 30 games and going into the winter break. Looking good.

 

[Juventino]

Awesome! I'm glad the rise of Dukla is an inspiration! Really interesting history lesson aswell. Good luck & I'll be following.

 

[crswind17]

Yup, Fehérvár has been renamed to Videoton FC again.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

The first order of business in the winter break was to improve the team for a true title push. I looked through my scout reports and found a kid named Tardelly at Goias, very recently unearthed by my Brazil scout, but never reported back to me. His potential is 5 stars and his teamwork attribute is 19. He must be mine. Unfortunately we had some competition for his signature, most notably Barcelona (!!!!!!!!!!!). When it came time to negotiate his contract I made sure to give him a huge bump in every area including adding an unsolicited match-highest wage earner clause. Eventually, he decided:

Here is the lad, 19 year old Tardelly, who has all the attributes to be another Nandor Hidegkuti or Peter Palotas. I'm a little giddy.

In addition, we sold Tshabalala to PSV for 1m Euros. We are going to fully commit to this 4-4-2 wingless diamond that gave us our greatest successes this season.

We were eliminated from the Hungarian Cup very early in the season, but the League Cup just wouldn't go away. Despite fielding absolutely awful teams to rest players for the League push, we stayed in the competition and advanced to the final. If it hadn't happened before, Eliandro announced his presence as THE FORCE in Hungary.

The fans even have a song for him:

Score with the right
Score with the left
Eliandro

Run past your man
Then place the shot
We love you

We want a chip
we want assists
and you deliver always

We'll call your name
We'll call your name
We love you

Eliandro
Eliandro
Eli-Eliandro
Eli-Eliandro

Set to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ZUuHXgQ8k#t=01m11s

What can I say, Europeans love this ****.

Eventually we also clinched the title in front of our numerous die hard fans:

OH COME ON! 971 fans to watch us win the title!??! The stadium holds 10,000!! Good to know the entire country is going to loathe us when we start to dominate.

Oh well. On to next season where we will start in the Second Qualifying Round of the Champions League. Hopefully that helps us attract some new players, and keep the stars we already have.

 

[crswind17]

MTK's average attendance was around 1500, even when they became champions in 2008, don't be too surprised about it.

 

[Zlatan]

Jawohl!

 

[Pizarro14]

cool story bro.






































literally
p.s. this sounds insanely interesting maybe I should coach a third world country club.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Right as the transfer window opened I had already found a gem in Ukraine, 21 year old Adolphe Teikeu who is a MASSIVE upgrade over what we were playing and should also form a Senegal-Cameroon partnership at the back with Coulibaly.

In addition we had one decent youth player come up through the ranks this year, 16 year old Attila Nagy who is probably already our second best left back and will have a chance to prove it as he will start as #2 in that position.

Next, Khune went down with an injury that could threaten our Champions League run before it started, so we loaned in 21 year old Brazilian keeper Fabio who looks to be a great talent and perhaps we will think of signing him after the season if he impresses.

Next up is 18 year old Guinean midfielder Moussa Sylla who looks to be a pretty good player already, but with immense potential. He'll have a chance to crack the starting 11 this year. Very determined and influential player, which is great.

To give a little bit better depth in the defense, we brought 20 year old Dedryck Boyata in on loan from Manchester City. Not the best defensive mental attributes, but clearly the best defender in Hungary excluding our two other defenders.

I also was recommended Anas Cherkaoui, an 18 year old Moroccan keeper by my Brazilian scout doing the rounds in Africa, so we snatched him up for a paltry 400k from Raja Casablanca.

And finally, it won't go through until next year, but here is the transfer that can seriously begin our assent to the top of the world. His contract runs until 2017 and he WILL NOT be sold. I will play him unhappy. Poor kid probably thinks this is just going to be a quick stop on his road to Chelsea. Nope.

Also of note is that 17 year old wonderkid Zoltan Somogyi will spend this coming season on loan at ZTE, another First Division squad as a valuable first team member. Likewise 17 year old defensive player Tibor Kiprich will spend the year at affiliated First Division club Siofok who are probably losing both first team CDs. Excellent.\



The season began in the Second Round of Champions League Qualifying against Bosnian side Zeljeznicar Sarajevo and we cruised through, setting up a meeting with....

RAPID VIENNA!! Austrian team! Sweet little rivalry there dating back to when fans of both teams bowed to the Hapsburgs. First leg would be in Vienna, and we shocked the world.

In front of 20,000 Austrians with their jaws on the floors, Eliandro put on a masterclass performance and all but sent us through to the Group Stages of the Champions League. Eli-Eliandro Eli-Eliandro!! The Second Leg Party was set for a week later; maybe we'd even attract 1000 fans.

Hey, hey, almost 5k!

Well, you can tell I don't have experience in lower leagues, because there is a "Playoff Qualifying Round" which we must play in. Here's the draw:

Manageable.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

The first leg was in Bulgaria, and while I suspected Rapid Vienna were a better team that Litex, I wasn't sure.

Now I'm sure. Absolute domination, and I changed Ze Vitor's role for the first time in this game and he came away with his first goal in quite awhile. Very good. We're going to the Group Stages! And just to seal it:

So that brings us to the draw, and I was expecting the worst. Here's what we got:

Thats.... possible? Fingers crossed.



First things first, I desperately need another striker, and I was hoping that entering the Champions League in the Group Stage would attract better players to the club. That was not the case, so instead we settled for Suso, a 17 year old Attacking Midfielder on loan from Parent Club Liverpool. Great potential; certainly not ready for the Champions League, but should do the business in Hungary.

So with our final signing made, we got aboard our chartered (CHARTERED!! YEAH!!!!) flight and headed north to Glasgow to make our first appearance in the Champions League Group Stage in... it's gotta be decades.

What do they say in Britain? Three points is three points innit? Of course, not all games would be Candy and Sunshine

All 4 Inter goals coming off set pieces. ******* Italians.

 

[Filipower]

**** you guys because of you lot I want to play the game so badly, but I can't be arsed to pick my Bucharest team again at this point...


Great job btw Shifty

 

[Juventino]

Cool, Kovacic. I had him on my shortlist in my early Dukla days, but I decided to go with Alan Patrick instead. Kovacic surprisingly never blossomed in my game. He had a decent time at Shakhtar between ages 22-26, but only has 1 cap for Croatia. He never even averaged a rating over 7 in a season in his career either. Now he sits on the bench at Napoli aged 29. I hope you can get the best out of him, because he looked VERY promising.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

BTW, if you can't tell by now here are the ABCs of my transfer policy: A) Africa, Brazil, C) CCCP Protectorates

p.s. this sounds insanely interesting maybe I should coach a third world country club.

Yeah, just do what Juventino and I did, edit in a foreground sugar daddy to some small club. That way you'll have room to grow and cash to spend, but there are still a lot of other obstacles to get over.

Third World?! Hungary is in the EU!

Cool, Kovacic. I had him on my shortlist in my early Dukla days, but I decided to go with Alan Patrick instead. Kovacic surprisingly never blossomed in my game. He had a decent time at Shakhtar between ages 22-26, but only has 1 cap for Croatia. He never even averaged a rating over 7 in a season in his career either. Now he sits on the bench at Napoli aged 29. I hope you can get the best out of him, because he looked VERY promising.

That's interesting, because I have had a top Brazilian scout criss-crossing the country for almost 2 years now looking for any player 21 or younger, and Patrick was never highly recommended. In fact, I only clicked on his name once because I remembered him from the Dukla story, but wasn't impressed and moved on.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

The third game saw us host HSV, and hold onto your hats ladies

I have no words. I'm in shock right now. Through 3 games the group table looks like this:

If Inter beat them both... and if they draw again... holy ******* ****.

Our rematch in Hamburg was a 3-1 loss, and then hosting Rangers we had the better play, but could only manage a 0-0 draw. Combined with Hamburg also getting a 0-0 draw against Inter (despite being out played), MTK would either need to take a point off Inter, or hope for a draw or Rangers win in the other match. It would be at Ibrox, so anythign was possible, but clearly only up 2 points headed to Milan was not the scenario we were hoping for.

Inter had already qualified, so they trotted out this lineup:

Some good players, but that's not impossible for us. No Eto'o and Sneijder makes me very happy.

The game started off terribly... young right back Szkeles making his first start in over a month keeps Destro onsides, and he slots home an easy goal. Is this a repeat? Then something happened in the 40th Minute.

Eli-Eliandro Eli-Eliandro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You also might be interested in this:

OMG. What kind of a team talk do you give here? I'm more nervous than the players. I tell them one more goal will do it. Which it did; unfortunately, it was for the wrong team. HOWEVER... savor it boys.

I've been ignoring the league, largely because it's uneventful. Despite not having a great season and being riddled with injuries, we still go into the winter break at the top of the table, albiet on goal difference.

On to the second half, and the Draw.

Manageable!

BTW, my final match of the fall season was a second leg Cup Match against non-league side Oroshaza. The manager described my pitch as "treacherous" before the game. I waited until the draw to decide if I wanted to relay it; had we drawn Barca, Man U, or Real Madrid, I probably would have turned the pitch to **** and turned on hard tackling. Against Sevilla, I think we should probably just relay the pitch; as the best domestic team it helps us to have a nice field. However the board have decided that the pitch won't be relayed during our nearly 3 month winter break, but rather in the summer. Watch out Sevilla.