7 days in football – culminating in big derbies

DO Europe’s top leagues align their diaries to ensure some of the big games are played over the same weekend? Next weekend, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and Italy all have huge clashes, while in midweek, we have the FA Cup quarter-finals and another round of Champions League games.

Monday March 13

In Northern Ireland, two of the front-runners, Crusaders and Cliftonville meet, while the last Scottish Cup quarter-final, Falkirk versus Ayr, takes place. The other semi-finalists: Rangers, Celtic and Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

Tuesday March 14

Two UEFA Champions League last 16 second legs. Porto host Inter with the Italians having a one-goal advantage and Manchester City and RB Leipzig are all-square at 1-1. Who will join Chelsea, AC Milan, Benfica and Bayern Munich in the last eight?

Wednesday March 15

The last Champions League ties, Italian chamopions elect Napoli are at home to Frankfurt and have a two-goal lead from the first leg in Germany. Napoli are 18 points clear at the top of Serie A. Real Madrid won their first leg at Liverpool 5-2, so will be hoping to finish Jürgen Klopp’s side off at home. In the Premier League, the oddest “derby”, Brighton v Crystal Palace, the clash of seagulls and eagles, kicks off.

Thursday March 16

Manchester United have got their Europa League round of 16 tie sewn-up unless something seismic happens in Seville. Real Betis trail 4-1. Arsenal will have to work hard against Sporting Lisbon after their 2-2 draw in Portugal, but as Premier League leaders, they will be favourites to go through. Real Sociedad trail by two goals to Roma, who travel to Basque country for the second leg. In the Conference League, West Ham host AEK Larnaca with a 2-0 lead from their game in Cyprus.

Friday March 17

Cracking League One action with Sheffield Wednesday at home to Bolton Wanderers.

Saturday March 18

In the FA Cup sixth round, Manchester City welcome their former skipper Vincent Kompany and his Burnley side to the Etihad. In the Premier, struggling teams have tough tasks, including Southampton v Tottenham and Chelsea v Everton. League Two sees a promotion tussle with Carlisle United at home to Stevenage.

Sunday March 19

Three FA Cup quarter-finals: Sheffield United v Blackburn, Brighton v Grimsby Town and Manchester United v Fulham. It’s also the last eight in the Women’s FA Cup, with Lewes hosting Manchester United, Brighton going to Birmingham, Reading playing Chelsea and Aston Villa at home to Manchester City. In Spain, it’s El Clasico time, with Barca v Real Madrid. In Italy, the Derby d’Italia, Inter versus Juve takes place, and it’s the Rome derby aswell, Lazio v Roma. Ajax and Feyenoord meet headlong in Amsterdam, while in  Vienna, Austria Wien are at home to Rapid.

The Jewish influence is often overlooked

THESE are troubled and uncertain times for Britain’s Jewish population. With accusations of anti-semitism aimed at the country’s biggest political party, the mere mention of which sends a shiver down the spine of anyone with knowledge of the Holocaust, there is an underlying fear that history could be repeating itself.

From that dreadful period, the tale of a hugely influential football figure has emerged, written by author David Bolchover. It is the story of Béla Guttmann, the man who led Benfica to two European Cup successes in 1961 and 1962, breaking the stranglehold that Real Madrid had on the competition in that era.

Bolchover’s book, The Great Comeback: From Genocide to Football Glory is a moving and fascinating account of one of the game’s great innovators. As well as a brilliant story of an often overlooked character, the book is also a reminder of the contribution made by Jews to the development of football. Progressive football, a genre that spawned the Austrian Wunderteam, the Hungarians of 1954, the Dutch and Germans in the early 1970s and even Barcelona in the 21stcentury, owes much of its origins to coffee-drinking Jewish intellectuals and chess-playing idealists from central Europe.

“Football wasn’t really a working class sport in places like Vienna, Prague and Budapest in the inter-war years,” says Bolchover. “It was, essentially, middle class and these people brought an entrepreneurial spirit to the game. Many of these were Jewish and were eager to adopt a more cerebral approach to football.”

In depressed Europe in the 1920s and 30s, Jews often found they were up against severe prejudice and as they have often done down the decades, combated isolation by creating things for themselves, including football clubs. In the coffee houses of the region, Jewish football people, such as Hugo and Willy Meisl, would discuss football and develop a new way of playing, which became known as the “Danubian” style. “These men broke the mould in many ways, preferring a very distinct passing game to the more basic approach we knew in England. It wasn’t just in Austria, though, for in Hungary, there were many fine coaches that left their mark on the game across Europe for many years. People often forget that Hungary reached the World Cup final in 1938,” says Bolchover.

The Austrian team that threatened to win the World Cup in 1934 was lost to the world once Anchluss arrived in 1938 and its star man, Matthias Sindelar, probably died at the hands of the Nazis. Sindelar was a gentile, but lived in a Jewish neighbourhood in Vienna. He was also defiant in the face of the Germans, refusing to acknowledge the new unified regime in Austria.

The Hungarian team of 1938 included a Jew, Ferenc Sas, which was quite remarkable given the mood in Europe and the threat of war. That same year, Hungary’s Miklós Horthy passed a series of anti-Jewish measures in response to Germany’s Nuremburg Laws. Hungary became a dangerous place for a Jew – in 1944, a Jew living in the countryside had a less than 10% chance of surviving 10 months. Sas, who was born “Sohn”, migrated to Argentina in 1938 and avoided the chaos.

Béla Guttmann’s own life mirrors events in Europe during the 1930s. Hungarian Jewry was all but wiped out in the second world war and for a while, Guttmann hid in an attic in Újpest. He was sent to a labour camp and just avoided being sent to Auschwitz. Tragically, his father and sister were both murdered at that camp.

After the war, just 16 years later, Guttmann led Benfica to their first European Cup triumph, beating Barcelona in the final in Bern. In 1962, they did it again, recording a memorable 5-3 victory against Real Madrid. “These were astonishing achievements, notably because he had staged a comeback from extreme misery to win football’s biggest club prize in a continent that tried to exterminate him,” says Bolchover.

But while Guttmann was an undoubted success, the light had gone out for Jewish football. Some historians blame Communism for the decline of the central European game, but that’s too easy – and possibly convenient – an explanation. Countries like Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslavakia and Poland had their moments in the post-war years, but what was missing was the devotion to making something unique and lasting. Communist football did create, with a little help from the past, one of the finest teams never to win the World Cup in the form of the 1954 Magyars. Austria, however, lost all impetus with its annexation into Germany and after the war, the people that had built a footballing culture that gave the world Das Wunderteamhad gone, murdered in camps like Auschwitz. “European Jewry was almost obliterated,” says Bolchover. “Today, around 90% of the world’s Jews are either in Israel or the US. Israel had a brief moment on the world stage in 1970 under coach Emmanuel Scheffer, another football man with a story, but the Holocaust effectively ended Jewry’s significant influence on the game.”

Thankfully, people like Béla Guttmann and Ernst Erbstein, who died in the infamous Superga disaster in Turin with Italy’s first great post-war team, continued the work started by the Meisls in Austria. David Bolchover’s book is, to some extent, a monument to football folk that overcame great odds to contribute to the rich history of the game. It is also a reminder that anti-semitism, in any shape or form, is something that rises to the surface when things get out of control. We should not forget that, whatever our faith, political persuasion or personal beliefs.

The Great Comeback: From Genocide to Football Glory by David Bolchover is published by Biteback.