A VISIT TO THE REALM OF THE BEST FOOTBALLERS IN THE WORLD
COMMENT ON DR. NERZ'S SERIES OF ARTICLES IN "KICKER"
József Képessy | 23/09/1941

Europe's leading football magazine, the German "Der Kicker", which has a circulation of several hundred thousand copies, has for weeks published a long series of full-page articles by Dr. Otto Nerz. The subject is extremely interesting. After a detailed study of the individual team sections, Dr. Nerz has put together the best team in the world, the European national team, the record-breaking national team, the representative team of Germanic and Latin players and so on.

Today, when letters serve less and less their original vocation of delight, of bringing the continents and countries of the world closer together, it is with genuine pleasure and interest that we read, week after week, Dr. Ottó Nerz's fascinatingly interesting, abstract and highly skilled lines. 

Here, unfortunately, we do not have the space to go into the German professor's criticisms of the world's greatest ever players with the thoroughness and detail of the subject, but we are of the opinion that even so, in a small volume, our readers will still enjoy our insights.

According to Dr. Nerz, there are 3.000 first-class footballers, of whom around 500 players are in the top flight, of whom 50 players make up the international world class.

The German teacher does not talk about England's players, because his teams are made up of players from the countries of the European continent, and even the world's strongest fixture list is made up without the island nation's players, which is understandable, because English players are not as well known in their isolation as those from other nations. Dr. Nerz does not talk about the English is only because they have been conspicuously absent from recent major tournaments. They have not played in the Olympics since 1912, but they have also stayed away from world championships outside the Olympics. How great Dr. Nerz considers them to be in spite of this is best illustrated by his lines about Sindelar. In them, Dr. Nerz writes that even in England, the brilliant centre-forward from Vienna was admired, and that he had set himself up to reach the peak of his form in London, the Mecca of football.

The author has a very high opinion of us Hungarians. He considers a whole host of our players to be world greats. But let's keep in line. First of all, Dr. Nerz has put together the best German team of all time in this way:

Vogl I.                  Sindelar                  Lehner
   Szepan            Gschweidl

Nausch         Goldbrunner         Kupfer

  Blum         Janes

Jakob

This is a team whose names make football fans salivate. These 11 are unbeatable," says the reader at first glance. But let us, Dr Nerz, put together our own list of the best Hungarian teams: 

Hirzer                  Orth                  Braun
Schlosser            Konrád II.  

    Lázár         Dr. Sárosi         Borsányi

  Fogl II.         Rumbold

Plattkó

Or our reserve team, if you like: 

Kohut                  Schaffer                  Sas   
Eisenhoffer            Takács II.    

    Dudás         Bukovi         Kertész II.

  Biró         Mándi

Zsák

And we can already say: they would put up a great fight against the best Germans, at least with equal chances of victory. 

Then the excellent German expert will put on paper the best team in Europe: 

Orsi                  Sindelar                  Sas  
Szepan            Meazza

Nausch         Monti         Kupfer

Fogl II.         Tarp

Zamora

And this brings us to the first point of our debate. There is no doubt that this team is a great class act, but we would put a better player in the best team on our continent in place of Tarp, Kupfer, Monti, Sas, Meazza, Sindelar and Szepan, like this: 

    Orsi                  Orth                  Biavati
Samitier            Gschweidl

Nausch         Dr. Sárosi         Kolenatý

Blum         Fogl II.

Zamora

Our reasoning is as follows: Dr. Nerz unjustifiably considers Tarp the best right-back because Károly Fogl was better than him. On the left side, we think that Pepi Blum, the Vienna excellence nicknamed Weltmeister, is the best. In the half-back line, we would put Kolenatý of the world famous Czech trio Kolenatý-Káďa-Červený as right half-back, while we would put the young Dr. Sárosi in the centre-half position. Zamora and Nausch's place is not in doubt, but we prefer Biavati to Ferenc Sas, however Hungarian we are. We are equally agreed on Orsi, but in the inside three we cannot do without Vienna's Gschweidl, the most brilliant player of all time, the unfortunate György Orth who was so young, and the Spanish hotshot, the versatile Samitier.

György Orth was the most versatile player the world has ever known. He started his career as left back for Vasas youth team. He later played centre-half and then left-half, was an insider for many years, and then a centre-forward for many years in the great MTK. Magnificently played as full-back, played left-half at the Olympics and once in Germany, in a Hungarian-German match, he was a brilliant goalkeeper in place of the injured goalkeeper!

In Nerz's team, it is also a mistake that the inside trio (Meazza, Sindelar, Szepan) are preparatory players, while in our team it is only the two inside players, Gschweidl and Samitier, while Orth in the centre-forward position is both the conductor of the best attacking five in the world and a superb finisher who scored killer goals from 20-25 metres.

And one more, dear Dr. Nerz! You are a believer in the WM, the English system of play, but you still give your team room for two old-fashioned full-backs (Fogl II., Blum), and your forward line does not play the W formation either, as even the young Sindelar was not as fast as Piola, and without that, there is no question of being an ideal WM centre-forward, and Sindelar was not a biting, inbounds style centre-forward, and technique alone is of little use against a stopper, according to WM doctrine.

We have always been advocates of witty combinative play based on short, flat passes and as such, we are delighted to see that even you — who swore allegiance to the WM — is basing your teams on witty players, because you put the slow Gschweidl, who was anything but a modern robot serving a centre-forward in the best German eleven, as an inside player, admit it, Doctor. WM system here, WN system there, yet the top of the football game was the one played by Samitier, Orth, Sindelar, Konrád II., Dr. Sárosi and jugglers like them! 

But let's also assemble the continent's number two team: 

Wessely                  Sindelar                  Braun   
Abegglen II.            Konrád II.
  
Červený         Káďa         Kupfer   

Rava         Foni

Plánička

Forms the second best team, while the third team:

Puč                  Piola                  Sas
Szepan            Meazza
  
Locatelli         Monti         Lázár   

Sesta         Minelli

Olivieri

In which case Plattkó, Zsák, Jakob, Hiden will be the goalkeepers; Rosetta, Ramseyer, Tarp, Caligaris, Rainer, De Vecchi, the full-backs; Mock, Borsányi, Kurz, Pitto, the right half-backs; Bukovi, Andreolo, Sárosi III., Middelboe and Smistik, the centre-halves; Dudás, Lechner, Kitzinger and Nitsch, for left half-backs; Aston, Lehner and Říha, for right wingers, Hahnemann, Uridil and Takács II., for right insiders; Alcantara, Braine, Schaffer, Binder, Bican, Silný, Koželuh and Kuthan, for centre-forwards; R. Hofmann, Ferrari, Nielsen, Schlosser and Bodola are the left insiders; and finally Colaussi, Wieser, Kobiersky are the left wingers, but they have not yet been replaced!

There is no doubt, then, that our old continent has produced a wealth of brilliant talent over the ages. It begs the question: do the English, living in cold isolation, know these footballers? Sadly, we have to answer no. The British only took notice of players who put in excellent performances against them. Matthias Sindelar and Walter Nausch had many successes in London in the ever-memorable 4-3 England-Austria match, but Dudás was also praised for his performance in the London Anglo-Hungarian match to the tune of £6.000!

If we now bid farewell to our continent, which has seen its fair share of storms, and sail to the prosperous, coffee-tango-harmonica-soul-sunny South America, we will find some excellent players there too. Uruguay, triumphant at two Olympics, Argentina and Brazil, also with great players, are all in the top international class. In this respect, there is no disagreement with Kicker, which says that goalkeeper Mazali, full-back Nasazzi, wing halves Andrade and Evaristo, centre-halves Fernández, Monti and Calandra, and inside right Scarone, left winger Orsi, centre-forwards Petrone, Leônidas and Anselmo are South America's elite. Dr. Nerz then puts together the Weltmanschaft in this way: 

Orsi                  Sindelar                  Sas
Szepan            Meazza
  
Evaristo         Monti         Andrade

Nasazzi         Tarp   

Zamora

Here again, we have to object. Otto Nerz just can't get rid of the good Tarp! Monti and Evaristo don't belong in this team either, and in the forward line we could only "use" Orsi, because this is what our world team (without England) looks like:

   Orsi                  Orth                  Biavati
Samitier            Scarone
  
  Nausch         Dr. Sárosi         Andrade

   Blum         Nasazzi

Zamora

From which it seems that the best European team is only completed by Nasazzi, Andrade and Scarone, the Uruguayan heroes of the 1924 Paris Olympics! 

Although we have a high regard for English football, we believe that this team, in its heyday and at the height of its powers, would have beaten the strongest British eleven in London.

That is our opinion, dear Dr. Nerz. We thank you for your series of articles in the Kicker, but who is right, us or you, we cannot and will never be able to decide, because although Professors Woronoff and Steinach were great masters of rejuvenation, even their knowledge and methods are not enough to ever see these magnificent footballers together at their best.