THE URUGUAYANS OLYMPIC REVELATION — A COURSE OF FOOTBALL SCIENCE AND ART — A NEW ORIENTATION IN HUNGARIAN FOOTBALL.
— José Torrens | 28/05/1924 —

To me, who had not yet been able to see the famous orientales whose references, even though they predicted a great team, had come to me confused with those of attribution of part of their victories in Spanish fields, to partial actions of their referee-accompanying, and, above all, with the general critical appreciation that their brilliant play should be ineffective against a hard-playing team, it only remains for me to say that the first 45 minutes of the Uruguay-Yugoslavia match (I wanted to "unfold myself" to see in the Stade Bengyere the second half of Hungary-Poland) have been the best football, by one of the teams, that I have witnessed this season. And in past seasons only that fantastic afternoon of Birmingham against C.D. Europa and the first exhibition made a few years ago by Newcastle in Barcelona, can compare them, without surpassing them.

The Uruguayans were a priori greeted with a certain amount of scepticism in Paris. Proof of this is the small turnout at Colombes. But this sparse attendance, both in the South American and Spanish section (Spain having failed, the Spanish have become supporters of Uruguay), as well as in the neutral section and we are about to say even in the sparse section of servians who made it up, surrendered very quickly to the enthusiasm, before that magnificent, impressive demonstration of football played by the players from Latin America. It was a perfect course of football science and art that left us all amazed and astonished.

The match, after a few first moments of scoring, did not "have color" in the rest. The Uruguayans were absolute masters of the field, dominating how and when they wanted, showing the full range of their game that, from that moment on, has consecrated them — except for a new, unsuspected similar revelation — as favorites among the favorites.

The Yugoslavians, who are no mean team, were struggling in futile efforts to counteract their all too evident superiority. But neither their tricks nor their violence (the Zagreb team which visited Barcelona two years ago had already shown that the ‘new Serbs’ are in this respect an advanced disciple of the Czechs) could do anything against the South Americans, whose play was too subtle and too complete for them not to be able to counteract such manifestations with their extraordinary skill and also with other ‘tricks’ in which they are laymen.

Citing names in the Uruguayan team is perhaps not too fair because each and every one showed a very high class and were effective collaborators in a very brilliant victory that could have been greater than having wanted to force the performance. However, we cannot help but state that the right wing Scarone-Urdinarán, the centre-forward Petrone and Andrade, the somber half-back, were the ones who most frequently — we could say that every time they came into action — excited us.

Of the Yugoslavs — who, we repeat, are not a negligible team — the best was undoubtedly the goalkeeper who saved his team from a much greater defeat.

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The result obtained by Hungary against Poland was also copious. However, when we arrived at the Stade Bergeyre, after the break, the scoreboard showed only one goal in favor of the Hungarians and the references we were able to gather from other comrades were that the match had until then been one of absolute mediocrity.

In the second half, however, the Hungarians "came out" and gradually prevailed until they achieved victory by a magnificent five to zero.

The most characteristic and noteworthy aspect of this match was undoubtedly the new orientation highlighted in Hungarian football. The extraordinary parsimony and precision that we had seen two years ago in the MTK so wonderful but also so ineffective, has given way to speed and decision, even to the detriment of the science of the game. There is less method, less perfection in the meshing of all the lines and the elements of each of them, but there is more drilling power. They are at least what we seemed to appreciate in this match. However, this evolution may harm them in this tournament, because as a result, the eleven gives the impression of something not mature that can crumble against a team more dangerous than the Polish one, which seemed neither better nor worse than the "Cracovia" known to the majority of Spanish audiences. In the first half they offered serious resistance but in the second, the Polish team did not exist. Their best man was undoubtedly the right winger who in the first half was very dangerous, but in the second half, closely marked, he could do nothing due to the lack of value of his teammates.

Many of the names of the Hungarian players are familiar to us. Orth, the famous forward, played splendidly as a half-back, a position that seems to have already been definitively assigned to him. In the forward line Opata showed that he had not lost any of his abilities. The Fogl brothers, who have abandoned their unmistakable heady resurgence, put up a fine defence. As representatives par excellence of the new orientation towards speed and efficiency, the new and young elements Hirzer and Eisenhofer stood out, being the extremely dangerous forwards whose performance was the greatest factor in the copious victory.

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Isaque Argolo: Torrens mistook Gyula Mándi for József Fogl when he said "Fogl brothers".