A tribute to Arpad Weisz

This story begins in 1930, Arpad Weisz, a 34 years old Hungarian football manager, became the youngest coach to win a scudetto in Serie A, managing Ambrosiana Inter.

That record still stands, nearly 87 years later.

Afterwards he won two consecutive titles at Bologna FC: 1935-36 and 1936-37, next season, in October, he had to leave his job, Fascist Italy had promulgated the infamous Racial Laws, Weisz was Jewish and was obliged to leave Italy with his family.

Weisz finished his career by coaching Dordrecht in Holland, then the Nazi regime occupied the country and decided to put in place the final solution, the systematic mass murder of European Jewry, in 1944 he was killed by gas at Auschwitz.

A sad story, like many others in wartime period, the odd thing was that Arpad Weisz was completely forgotten, he was one of the most prominent football coach in Europe when WWII outbroke, but strangely, after the war, he suddenly became a ghost, vanished among the shadows of the past.

There's a chance you never heard about this man, but do not worry, even in Italy a lot of people had forgotten him until the editor of Guerin Sportivo, Matteo Marani, wrote a book in 2007 about his life entitled "From the scudetto to Auschwitz".

An unsung hero football hero, a brilliant innovator who took the best from the English game (the well known Herbert Chapman's WM system) and turned it into a more counterattacking tactical asset that could better suit the peculiarities of Italian football.

He brought modernity to Bologna and to Italian football as a whole.

Il giuoco del calcio, 1930

Vittorio Pozzo in 1930, in the foreword of Weisz's book Il giuoco del calcio (the Game of Football), admitted he was heavily inspired by the tactical ideas and training methods of the young Hungarian; Pozzo will lead Italy to back-to-back World Cup victories in 1934 and 1938.

It simply inspired me to pick up Bologna FC for my long term career, I'll try to awake one of the historical fallen giant of Italian football, knowing the history of the club you're managing allows more immersion into the game, it's a golden rule I always follow.

What you should expect from this savegame?

I'm going to set some challenging targets inspired by Weisz career at Bologna, first of all I want to celebrate him beating his record: he won two consecutive scudetti, I'm targeting to win three in a row serie A titles.

Bologna after beating Chelsea in 1937

After leading Bologna to back-to-back league titles, his side reached the final of the now defunct Tournoi International de l'Expo Universelle de Paris, one of the many forerunners to the European Cup.

Their opponents were Chelsea who were about to be blown away.

Bologna won 4-1 and that team is still remembered to this day as the one "that shook the world." It was the most celebrated moment of Weisz's career and the apogee of Bologna Football Club.

Another target of mine, to improve his results, would be to conquer a major European trophy, the Uefa Champions League should be good.

Angelo Schiavio, one of Weisz main player, is still the all-time Bologna leading scorer, 251 goals in 364 apps, he scored the winner for Italy in the 1934 Worls Cup final as well, an impressive scoring record that I'll try to beat with one of my players.

The last achievement I'd love to reach in this career would be to build a new stadium for Bologna and naming it after the mighty Hungarian.

They're a decent team, recently they'be been acquired by a new owner, Canadian businessman Joey Saputo, he said to have an ambitious plan for them, but early signs are not so great, he just sold their most promising player, Amadou Diawara, to Napoli for 14 Millions of euro without replacing him properly.

I've got a young team, one of the youngest in serie A, there are some veterans like Mirante, Dzemaili and Gastaldello and many youngsters, some of them are interesting prospects, Mbaye, Ferrari, Donsah and Pulgar, to cite the most prominent examples. They're not well tested at this level though.

Anyway I could change something, up top Mattia Destro is our star player but the other strikers are unconvincing, there will be a lot of thinkering during the next few days, looking at squad depth, searching for players etc...

Stadium Renato Dall'Ara

You should expect to see some old fashioned WM (the system) and WW (the method) inspired tactics in this save, let's see how these shapes could cope with modern football.

As you know I'm going to start the game when it will be fully released, I'm using the beta just to collect some informations about my squad and the gameworld I'm in, but I won't hit the continue button before November 4th, the game will be played using the official database with no edit allowed.

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• Overall balance: 11.1 M
• Transfer budget: 4 M
• Wage budget: 35 M (spending 34.3 M...)
• Serie A media prediction: 16th

• Stadium: Renato Dall'Ara, 36.462 seats
• Training facilities: Excellent
• Youth facilities: Good
• Junior coaching: Average
• Youth recruitment: Average