György Orth
Gabór Kléber | 01/02/1943

After the coaches ’last expert meeting, one of our coaches, who recently returned home from abroad, spoke a little contemptuously about the football conditions at home, the players and our teams. These reports were listened to in silence by our excellent and multi-team former footballer, who is currently the coach of one of our major associations, and then spoke:

This man criticizes it as if at least he was Gyuri Orth!

Orth Gyuri! The legendary figure of Hungarian football. Those who have ever seen this godly football player play are when they talk about Gyuri Orth, they either close their eyes and try to recall his brilliant play, or they try fiercely to explain who György Orth was.

The other day we talked to Sándor Pázmándy, a player of the Elektros national team. The subject of our conversation was football. Somehow our conversation turned out that Pázmóndy asked the question:

— How did that Gyuri Orth play?

— Haven't you ever seen Orth play?

I never had a chance to see five games, because when I started playing moderates, Orth was no longer playing, ”Pázmándy replied. “But I’ve heard so much beautiful and wonderful from older players and old fans that I’d be interested in the story of this great player.

There is no doubt that those who have known and loved Orth are still interested today in remembering the career of this player of this amazing ability. And those who couldn’t get to know and see him play might be interested because they can get to know the playful careers of the world’s most knowledgeable footballer.

Orth, the most knowledgeable player in the world.

People like to say brilliance when they quote your old thing. However, I do not fall into this error when I calmly declare that

György Orth was the most knowledgeable football player in the world.

During my football career, I have played and seen them play against teams of all nationalities around the world. I saw many world-famous football players on the field in my time and when I was just a spectator, I still looked at the players with open eyes. I knew the famous Austrian, German, Czech, Spanish, English, Polish, Danish, Swedish, Scottish, Turkish players. True, I did not see the Uruguayan national teams. But I’ve just talked to quite a few professionals who have seen the Uruguayan world champion team play several times. My first question was always:

— Were there players like Gyuri Orth among them?

The answer was consistently:

— There were excellent players among them, but none of them can and will reach the class of Gyuri Orth!

So I saw countless players with amazing abilities, but I didn’t know a player with such perfect knowledge as none of them was Gyuri Orth.

György Orth was a football genius! No one could imitate what this player did on the field. Sometime, a few dozen years ago, I was with Gschweidl, the world-famous excellence of the Austrian "Wundermannschaft", during a Hungarian-Austrian national team match.

— You know, football players like Pepi Blum or Káďa, for example, we're each other —, Gschweidl said with sincere openness, — but like Gyuri Orth, there weren't yet and I don't know if another one will be born."

This was the opinion of the famous Austrian International about György Orth.

Centre-forward of the best Hungarian eleven of all time, he even played defender and goalkeeper in the national team, and he was in every place in the cover line.

György Orth was the middle battle of the newest Hungarian eleven of all time. His amazing ability excelled the most in this place.

What he “shaped” in this place was the highest degree of perfect football.

György Orth could not be kept in check, it was not possible to calculate what his intentions were. He had a storehouse of knowledge that in every situation he had an idea of ​​something that he could solve in such a way that he survived his opponent even in the most difficult circumstances. Orth’s midfield play was an experience for the viewer.

However, Orth was not only a national team as a national team classic. He competed with the best in the quarterback. He was selected in three places in the cover line. 

I think Orth could have been in the best Hungarian team of all time not only in the middle striker, but also in the centre-half.

He also had excellent goalkeeping skills and in one of the national team matches, when our goalkeeper was injured, Orth stood in the goal and defended greatly, and only on the basis of this universal nature — but anyway — he surpassed all Woodward, Sindelar, Nasazzi, Cesarini, Schlosser, Drake, Zamora.

How did György Orth play?

György Orth's play can best be described as generous, dynamic and artistic. His every move seemed natural and easy. As he took the ball and immediately passed it to the best place without reflection or hesitation, it seemed so self-evident that the spectator thought to himself that a mountain could not have solved the situation any other way.

Orth was constantly moving on the pitch and silently let his opponent stand still for a moment. He sensed in advance what was going to happen to the ball four or five pulls later and was already positioned so that it almost certainly came to him. He alternated the most unexpected pulls and solutions with simple solutions. It was impossible to figure out what his intentions were. His body tricks were dazzling.

He was able to fool his opponent by countless times that the defenders did not dare to attack him for fear of making them ridiculous.

He treated the ball equally perfectly with his right or left. In his heyday, he had such bomb shots that his balls, like lightning, slammed into the net.

His head game was such that a study could have been written about it.

He could always head with his forehead from any situation. György Orth was 188 centimeters tall and was able to make excellent use of his head. He ruled over the ball with every part of his body. He was very fast at a very young age, and later, especially after breaking his leg, he lost his speed. His upper body was not strong, but Orth was hard-bound and could not be suppressed five. He did not like violent play and was never handled by him. However, the hardness of the opponent could not scare five. He reciprocated the hardness with hardness.

I played centre-half behind him for years. Many times I have seen with admiration how many solutions he has found in a fraction of a moment to cut himself through even the most difficult situation.

His brain connected and switched incredibly quickly.

In the blink of an eye, he found the key to the situation.

He was able to force his intentions on his peers as well, and with each movement he made a eloquent sense of what was to come.

György Orth could best be applied to the adjective that he was a "leader" in football. I don’t know if if he had entered a military career, he wouldn’t have been a prominent warlord.

György Orth was the player who could decide the fate of the matches on his own.

How did Orth train for the matches?

György Orth was one of the footballers who made the most diligent training. He worked with the boxing ball in the locker room for a long time, warming his muscles thoroughly until he finally went out on the field. He started the outdoor workout with an easy run. He never missed the jump rope. He did the rope jumping for fifteen to twenty minutes. When he was thoroughly sweating, he started the ball exercises.

He practiced one form for half an hour and until he could do it perfectly, he did not calm down and did not stop that one form.

He loved head-on exercises. He and his companions headed the ball for hours and thus achieved his amazingly perfect head game. His ball kicking was amazing. He could not come to the ball without a single movement of his leg, chest, or neck, and the ball would not obey him as a guarantor.

György Orth was never happy with his game. He always analyzed his game and judged it very strictly. If he was greeted and celebrated after one of his great games, he said:

— No, no, I'm not happy. I had some silly pulls in the second half that if I think back to it, I’m angry with myself.

However, this sounded honest and there was no arrogance in it. I only really saw him happy and satisfied once when we defeated the Italians 2:1 in Milan in 1925.

— You see, I didn't play flawlessly and yet I'm very happy because we scored the two goals from my shots, — he told me.

Orth, the strategist.

He was unsurpassed in recognizing situations and preparing for them. In vain was he caught many times by two or three, after a move and a trick, he deceived his opponents by standing wonderfully uncovered in a second or two. That was enough for him to give the ball to his best-placed partner in the blink of an eye. If then someone scored from his pass, Orth was the first to rush to the goal-scorer and congratulate him from the bottom of his heart.

He was able to help players of medium ability to perform quite well. He almost "reached under his arm" and tried to help him. We played with the French here in Budapest. Takács II. and Skvarek were the two connectors. Takács and Skvarek scored the goals (we won 13:1) and the audience praised Orth. He sent the two connectors in front of the goal and "put" the ball down for them so that they just had to kick it into the goal.

Orth’s greatness is also characterized by the fact that he doesn’t have a single game that has proven to be unprecedented, outstandingly great. He doesn’t have a certain day on which he would have played a blur of every other performance. Orth provided a series of performances that only one would be enough for another to knock on his chest for decades, pounding on his chest. Orth had countless absolutely perfect, impeccable, and wonderful performances.

What kind of person was György Orth?

Excellent people usually feel different, superior and a little arrogant, at least in the company of their "specialists". György Orth's popularity was limitless in his time not only in the capital and not only in the country, but also far abroad. I don’t mean to say that this popularity hasn’t fanned his vanity. It went well for him. However, he could use this wisely. If, after a match, the audience celebrated him, he went to his companions and shook their hands and said:

— Really, I don't deserve it, because thanks in large part to you for making the game go well.

He was a really good-natured and kind boy. He was involved in all the little things and fun. If he succeeded, he could laugh at this. He didn’t treat any of his teammates “from above” and happily found out he was happy to admit if someone was playing well.

Gyuri Orth was an intelligent man. He attended the technical university (True, he did not complete his engineering studies). He spoke other languages. He spoke German and English abroad, and later learned Italian and Spanish as well.

After the broken leg...

Orth had a brilliant six years from 1919 to 1925. During these years he was irresistible and wrote his name in the gold book of Hungarian football. On September 8, 1925, his sad accident occurred. György Orth's leg broke on this day ...

We played with Austria in Vienna. Nearly forty thousand people came out to the match. Orth played wonderfully and applauded the audience’s every move with self-forgetfulness. It was in the middle of the second half that Tandler, the Viennese right-back, reached into Orth's outstretched leg from behind in the opponent's 16th line... Crackling...

Orth got to his feet, shouted:

— Oh, my leg is broken!

The fracture was horrible. From the knee, the player's legs turned so that where he had his feet a moment earlier, he now had his heels. Forty thousand people got up from their seats and when we took Orth off the field, their dead silence buoys on the field were such that the hum of the fly could be heard...

We didn’t even continue the match and everyone took that for granted. After breaking the leg of the biggest player in the world, it was not possible to continue the game...

It took a year for Orthé to recover. In the fall of 1926, he was “able to perform” again. We played with the Hakoah in Vienna. The MTK track was packed to capacity and everyone wanted to celebrate the re-entry of Orth. A footballer who has never been given a celebration like the one given to the pitch by the audience may have never been given a celebration. These were minutes of tears. But his game was no longer the old one.

Orth played for a few more years and had some more sensational games. However, his total performance no longer reached the level before his leg break. As a result of the terrible injury, Orth lost a lot of his courage and speed. He had already avoided melee and was no longer playing with as much mood as before his injury. He couldn't keep up. After ten to twenty minutes of magnifying, there were big omissions.

Early, at the age of only 28, he began a severe decline. He was no longer a full-fledged player. He avoided Hungary, played in Buda 11. Of course, he was just on his own here. Yet there were countless many who attended Buda's matches for Orth's sake.

— Gyuri is still showing something worth watching the match, — these Orth worshipers whispered.

Then he started training and in the process Orth went abroad. The unprecedented brilliant career of the world's greatest football player has ever come to an end...

Once every hundred years...

Jimmy Hogan, the renowned coach, was the coach of MTK in the early 1920s. Then he got rid of the blue-and-whites and went back to his homeland. Then in 1924, MTK again asked Hogan to take over the training of the team. This was Hogan's first question:

— Is Gyuri Orth still playing? I go back happily because it means the greatest beauty to me to see Gyuri Orth play. A football player like Gyuri Orth appears only once every hundred years, when they are born!