The Greatest Comeback: From Genocide to Football Glory: The Story of Bela Guttmann - Paperback

by David Bolchover (Author)

Before Pep Guardiola and before Jos Mourinho, there was B la Guttmann: the first superstar football coach. Remarkably, Guttmann was also a Holocaust survivor. Having narrowly dodged death by hiding for months in an attic near Budapest as thousands of fellow Jews in the neighbourhood were dragged off to be murdered, Guttmann later escaped from a slave labour camp. His father, sister and wider family were murdered by the Nazis. But by 1961, as coach of Benfica, he had lifted one of football's greatest prizes: the European Cup - a feat he repeated the following year. Rising from the death pits of Europe to become its champion in just over sixteen years, Guttmann performed the single greatest comeback in football history.

Author Biography

David Bolchover is an author and commentator. He has published three previous books, including the bestselling 90-Minute Manager, which explored the various management styles of the great football coaches. He has written for a number of leading newspapers, such as The Times, the Telegraph and the Financial Times, and has frequently appeared on the BBC, Sky and other broadcast outlets.