MILAN – He was one of the greatest coaches ever to grace the European game. He was modern and successful, even in the 1930s. Most of all, he was courageous – a quality for which he would pay the highest price.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, this is our tribute to Istvan Toth-Potya.
Our tale begins in 1931. After five years and one Scudetto triumph in the 1929/30 season, Inter had decided to separate from Hungarian coach Arpad Weisz after they had slumped to a fifth-place finish behind winners Juventus.
The man brought in to replace Weisz was his 40-year-old compatriot Istvan Toth-Potya, with whom Weisz had faced off many times as a player in the early 1920s. Toth-Potya had been a fine striker for Ferencvaros, where he won two leagues and two Hungarian cups between 1912 and 1926, as well as bagging eight goals in 19 appearances for the Hungarian national team.
It was Toth-Potya’s coaching career that really put him on the map, however. The man known affectionately as Potyka – Carp – on account of his chubby face would go on to win three Hungarian championships on the bounce with Ferencvaros, the first of which came in 1926 when Toth-Potya was serving as player-manager. The coach also led the team to glory in the Mitropa Cup – the precursor to the European Cup.
Toth-Potya was an innovator: he introduced pre-season training, which was virtually unheard of in Hungary, revolutionised his side’s fitness preparations and drew up data sheets on each and every one of his players. It was this pedigree – not to mention his bulging trophy cabinet – that saw him named Inter manager in 1931.
There was an enviable squad waiting for Toth-Potya in Milan. On top of the infinite class of the 21-year-old Giuseppe Meazza, the Hungarian could draw on the sheer talent of South Americans Attilio Demaria and Hector Scarone, the enterprising style of midfielder Pietro Serantoni and the intelligence of Giuseppe Viani – known to all as Gipo – and Luigi Allemandi.
What followed was a season of mixed fortunes, the highlight being the derby win over AC Milan, but Inter finished the season down in sixth place, two points off third. It was a sufficiently disappointing result for Toth-Potya and Associazione Sportiva Ambrosiana-Inter to call it a day at the end of the campaign.
The coach returned to Hungary and would ply his trade there until 1943, barring a brief stint at Triestina – where he managed Nereo Rocco – between 1934 and 1936. Toth-Potya won another Hungarian league title with Ujpest, as well as the Hungarian Cup with Ferencvaros. He also founded the Hungarian Association of Football Coaches.
Yet Hungary was already blighted by war by the time Toth-Potya won that last trophy with Ferencvaros. Antisemitism had ripped through the country, its flames fanned by the Arrow Cross Movement. Toth-Potya, however, was not the kind of man to stand by and watch, especially when the spring of 1944 brought with it the mass deportations of Hungarian Jews to the extermination camps.
Together with Geza Kertesz – an ex-army official and former Ferencvaros team-mate who also managed in Italy with Catania, Roma and Atalanta – the two created a clandestine network named Dallam, or Melody. They sheltered Jews, in safe houses or religious institutes. Once, Kertesz – who, like Toth-Potya, spoke perfect German – even dressed up as a member of the SS to rescue Jews from the ghetto itself. In less than a year, Toth-Potya and Kertesz saved dozens of Jews. But in November 1944, they were betrayed.
The two were arrested, tried on charges of high treason and sentenced to death. They were shot together, in the entrance of Buda Castle, at dawn on 6 February 1945. Just seven days later, on 13 February, the Red Army entered the Hungarian capital.
After the liberation, Toth-Potya was buried in Budapest’s Kerepesi Cemetery, where the heroes of Hungarian history lie. There is no more fitting resting place for Toth-Potya: a good man, a man of whom F.C. Internazionale is eternally proud.
Roberto Brambilla
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