The Football Tragic

Things seemed to be looking up for Andras Torocsik in the summer of 1985. No longer the tearaway of Hungarian football, he had recently married and had a son, and despite his relatively advanced age a western European club had finally decided to take a chance on him. But his sojourn in Montpellier was not a happy one. "I signed for Montpellier only for the money," he recalled many years afterwards. "I felt like an exile there."

He was not the only Hungarian signed by Montpellier at the time; he was accompanied by the 1982 hat-trick substitute Laszlo Kiss. But the two had never been close friends, and the strains of an unfamiliar environment and unfamiliar team-mates, plus the stress of raising a young family, put the always sensitive "Toro" under great pressure. The breakdown of his marriage began at that time, according to his sister Eva. "All I can say is that he returned from France a completely different person."

So began his period of wandering. He went back to Hungary after a year in France (Kiss remained), tried unsuccessfully to find another club, drifted to Canada, had a crack at indoor football...and was unable to settle.

Finally, in 1989, he landed at Budapest's MTK club. Pundits wondered whether Torocsik, now 33 and long out of top-level football, would cope with a return to first-division action. But in his first game, at home to Gyor, he delighted the fans after coming on as a second-half substitute, setting up a goal with all his old craft and providing some memorable moments of skill.

In MTK's next game, he was on from the start. But after only 19 minutes, the second of two dreadful fouls by the Tatabanya defender Endre Udvardi left Torocsik with a fractured tibia. The veteran star's old team-mate Sandor Zombori reported the incident in the press with deep anger, and the unfortunate Udvardi had to suffer cries of "Butcher! Butcher!" for many months afterwards.

Torocsik duly underwent an operation, but when MTK representatives came to see him at his apartment, he wouldn't let them in. By the end of the year he was ready to play again, but he simply didn't turn up to training. His time at MTK was over. There were half-hearted attempts to continue his career at other clubs, and the fans still hoped to see just a bit more of their idol before his retirement. But it all came to nothing. 

There came a period when various sinecures were found for the ailing former star at various clubs, including his old stamping ground of Ujpest. It might have been possible for Torocsik to gradually pull his life together. But his demons continued to follow him. In 1992, he had another serious car accident, and again, he was drunk at the time. There were even reports that he might face a prison sentence, but these proved to be premature.

Gradually, as the nineties wore on, Torocsik found some semblance of steadiness, producing trenchant ghostwritten articles on the state of Hungarian football for a well-known daily newspaper and making tentative moves towards coaching. (He did enrol in a UEFA B Licence coaching course, but only lasted a week.) 

When he turned 50 in 2005, the Ujpest club arranged a gala match in his honour, and Torocsik seemed in fine spirits. He took part in the exhibition match, scored a couple of goals, and his former colleagues were left feeling cautiously optimistic.

But money began to dry up, and his struggles with the bottle continued. In 2010 he suffered a fall at home and hit his head. With only his aged mother living with him, there was no-one to help, and the hematoma that had formed was removed only in the nick of time.

When his living conditions became more widely known, a number of old friends offered to help, including his former international partner-in-crime Tibor Nyilasi and the Ujpest club director Zoltan Kovacs. The latter eventually found him a job as a youth coach, and Torocsik swore not to drop off the wagon again. But he suffered a double tragedy the following year when his mother passed away, and new management at Ujpest pushed Kovacs out the door...and Torocsik with him.

There was another fall in 2014 after a period of heavy drinking, and this time Torocsik did not fully recover. When his friends saw him on his exit from the hospital after the inevitable operation, it was clear to them that "Toro" would not be able to live independently again.

His sister Eva extended his life by a few years, caring for him devotedly, but Andras Torocsik eventually passed away on July 9, 2022.

He never became a Maradona; not even a George Best. But to this day, pace Dominik Szoboszlai, Torocsik is widely viewed as the last genius of Hungarian football. Others could shoot, tackle, or put in powerful headers, but "Toro" could dance around the opposition - and the fans adored him for it.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:04 AM 0 comments

June 17, 1979. The Ujpest Dozsa team, champions of Hungary again, have just played their last league match of the season: an away game against Zalaegerszeg, a club from the west of the country near the Austrian border. Andras Torocsik, ever the individualist, has somehow managed to convince the coach Pal Varhidi to let him travel back to the capital in a friend's car, rather than on the team coach.

The friends had barely begun their journey when they skidded off the road into a ditch near the village of Zalacsany, and crashed into a tree. Their Fiat 500 was wrecked, and the Ujpest striker was badly injured. Consigned to crutches for the next three months, he was so badly hurt that there were initially fears that he wouldn't play again. The invitation from Enzo Bearzot to join his World XI team in Argentina was, quite literally, in his pocket when the accident occurred. The chance to play alongside the likes of Michel Platini, Zico, Paolo Rossi, Zbigniew Boniek and other stars of the era was suddenly gone.

Why was he allowed to go home by car at all? To this day the question is asked. But essentially, it was probably the old story of the prima donna: the star player sometimes gets to play by his own rules. The more serious aspect of the incident was that it was the first of many occasions on which Torocsik's fondness for alcohol got him into serious trouble.

It says something for Torocsik's character and determination that he not only recovered, but was prepared to alter his playing style to accommodate the fact that he was no longer as physically powerful as before. He dropped a little deeper and wider, becoming a creator as much as a scorer of goals. Many people noted that his goalscoring record declined sharply after the accident, but compensating attributes emerged. 

He was still playing well enough to return to the national side prior to the 1982 World Cup, although there had been another brief ban in the meantime - due to another car accident, in which Torocsik, again the worse for liquor, had collided with a car which (unluckily for him) was being driven by the wife of a Communist party official. Torocsik's reputation was certainly well enough known by the time the Hungarians embarked on a pre-World Cup visit to Australia. "Soccer rates behind wine, women, pop stars and fast cars among the Ujpest Dozsa player's priorities," was the introduction to a profile piece in the local Soccer Action newspaper.

The World Cup in Spain was not quite the same sort of shop-window opportunity for Torocsik that Argentina had been, but he was still hoping to catch the eye of the scouts - a large late-career paycheck from a western European club was a tempting prospect. Alas, the 1982 tournament was to be another disappointment. Although "Toro" started in Hungary's astonishing 10-1 victory over El Salvador, he was not one of the scorers, and the player who substituted him, future clubmate Laszlo Kiss, promptly scored a hat-trick.

Torocsik was left out for the next game, the rematch against Argentina. Perhaps this was for the best as far as he was concerned; Diego Maradona had his best game of the tournament, running rings around the Hungarian defence, and Argentina won 4-1. Torocsik returned for the group decider against Belgium, but he had little impact on a tight, niggly game. Alex Czerniatynski's late equaliser for the Belgians condemned the Magyars to go home early again. The scouts moved on.

There were still moments of high quality at club level, often in international cup-ties; soon after the World Cup, he scored a lovely goal and set up two more in classy style against the Swedish side Goteborg. Ujpest fans were left with another moment to savour in October 1983 when Torocsik, in his role as creator, twice elegantly left the Cologne defender Paul Steiner flailing before sending in a perfect cross for his clubmate Sandor Kiss (no relation to Laszlo) to open the scoring. As one Ujpest fan later commented, when musing on Torocsik's decline, "We'll always have Steiner." Their man still knew how to dance.

But the chance of a move beyond the Iron Curtain was becoming more distant. Torocsik's international career was over by 1985, and he was approaching 30 when a lifeline appeared: there was interest from the French club Montpellier. The first Ujpest game which the president of the French club watched ended up being a repeat of Buenos Aires in 1978: things weren't going Torocsik's way, and as sometimes happened in such situations, he saw red, kicked out at an opponent and was sent off. It was perhaps only the crowd's obvious affection for him (and the fact that Montpellier's assistant coach was Sandor Zombori, his old international colleague) that convinced Montpellier to give him a try.

Finally "Toro" was off to the west. But it was not to be a happy ending.

To be concluded in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:15 AM 0 comments

Andras Torocsik's ban from the Hungarian national side following his indiscretions in Argentina proved to be a temporary one, with national team coach Lajos Baroti successfully arguing his case at the highest levels. By way of celebrating his return to the fold, Torocsik scored what is still spoken of as one of the finest goals ever scored in Hungary, in a UEFA Cup tie for Ujpest Dozsa against Athletic Bilbao. Starting from near the left touchline, some 40 yards from goal, he danced his way past three defenders before sending a sublimely cheeky chipped lob over the keeper José Iribar. Even the Bilbao club magazine described it as "a goal you could watch 300 times over".

With Torocsik restored to the Hungarian side in late 1977 for the World Cup playoff against Bolivia, the Magyars simply stormed past their South American opponents. Torocsik scored a classic off-the-shoulder striker's goal in the first leg in Budapest, and gave a repeat performance in the second leg as well as setting up the second goal beautifully for Istvan Halasz. With his new strike partner Bela Varady in commanding form as well, and Tibor Nyilasi a constant danger from midfield, the Hungarians won the tie by 9-2, and were off to the World Cup for the first time in twelve years.

They landed in an extremely tough group. Facing hosts Argentina, Enzo Bearzot's talented young Italian side and a Platini-inspired France, the Magyars were not favoured to qualify for the second round. Much would depend on their first-up encounter with the hosts in Buenos Aires; would the Argentinian side, most of whom lacked prior World Cup experience, suffer an attack of opening-night nerves?

It was a pivotal match in Andras Torocsik's life and career. The chance to shine on the biggest stage of all, with European club scouts present in droves, may have been just as important a spur as the opportunity to pull off a memorable result for his country. True, the rules in Eastern bloc countries prevented a move to a western club until a player was already in his declining years, but the rules could be bent sometimes (as they were for Zbigniew Boniek a few years later). But the match ended in bitter disappointment, in more ways than one.

Many fans in Hungary have blamed the Portuguese referee Antonio Garrido for the harsh treatment meted out to Torocsik in the course of the match, but this is not the whole story. Garrido was certainly a weak referee who was far too indulgent with the cynical fouling which was a constant feature of the game. But much of this fouling, particularly in the first half, was perpetrated by the Hungarians. They had clearly decided to rattle the young Argentine players, especially the fragile-looking Osvaldo Ardiles, from the outset. By way of retaliation, the albiceleste did their share of deliberate body-checking and tripping as well. And Torocsik, as the lone man up front, bore the brunt of it.

Significantly, Bela Varady, who had formed a promising attacking partnership with Torocsik during the playoffs, was injured, leaving the Ujpest Dozsa man an isolated figure. Torocsik's reputation as a dangerman had clearly preceded him as well, with the result that he often found himself surrounded by three opposition players whenever he received the ball. 

There was an early goal for each side, Karoly Csapo's neat finish on the rebound being answered by a scrambled goal from Leopoldo Luque following a thumping free kick from Mario Kempes. The rest of the first half was goalless and indecisive: if Argentina were the more fluent side in attack, Hungary often posed danger on the break. But Torocsik was being policed with extreme diligence. In one significant moment, Garrido offered him a hand to help him get back up after another foul, and Torocsik rebuffed him with obvious hostility.

Early in the second half, perhaps frustrated at his peripheral role, he pounded the ball angrily against the turf when denied a throw-in, and Garrido issued him with a yellow card. It's not only in the present day that referees are more inclined to give a caution for petty rather than substantial reasons; several sly and even violent tackles had gone without punishment prior to Torocsik's minor act of petulance.

Argentina gradually assumed the upper hand, but they only broke through seven minutes from the close, when the battling Luque made a goal out of relatively little for the substitute, Daniel Bertoni. It was a fair reflection of the balance of the contest, but all was not lost for the Hungarians. There were still Italy and France to come. Sadly, though, they would be deprived of their most dangerous player for the following game...and it was so unnecessary.

With five minutes to go and Andras Torocsik deeply frustrated, the midfielder Americo Gallego beat him to a ball in the middle of the park. Torocsik angrily applied a kick to him on the way through, and he was off. And suspended for the next game, which the Hungarians had to win. To make matters even worse, Nyilasi also got himself dismissed in the very last minute for a high tackle on Alberto Tarantini; now Baroti would be without Nyilasi's drive in midfield and penalty-box prowess as well.

The rest of the tournament was an anti-climax for Hungary. Well beaten in the following game by Italy, who would have put far more than three goals past them had Roberto Bettega been in better form, they lost their last, meaningless game to France in an entertaining dead rubber which became well-known for somewhat comical reasons. Torocsik was back for this game, but he was plainly depressed and played well below his usual level.

The World Cup had been, in a word, disastrous both for country and player. But life went on, and the following year, charged with putting together a World XI to play against Argentina in Buenos Aires, Italy manager Enzo Bearzot invited Torocsik, whom he had long admired, to be a part of the side.

It was a precious opportunity. But another of the "incidents" which dotted Torocsik's life got in the way. More in Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:04 AM 0 comments

He had more talent than Maradona, according to Gyorgy Mezey, the man who coached him as a raw youngster. Enzo Bearzot chose him in his World XI in 1979. The legendary Hungarian coach Lajos Baroti asserted that although he'd known "just about everyone who'd kicked a ball", no-one had his degree of talent. According to almost everyone who saw him play, he was the last great genius of Hungarian football, a throwback to the glorious days of Puskas, Czibor, Hidegkuti and co.

Yet Andras Torocsik never made the most of his talent. A series of largely self-inflicted "incidents" hampered his playing career at every turn, and his life after football was a long, slow tale of alcoholic self-destruction.

Torocsik was born on May 1, 1955 in Budapest at the height of the Hungarian golden era, just before the 1956 revolution which would see so many of their star players become reluctant exiles. As with most players of his generation, it was the street which provided his initial football education. He and his friends played all day long in front of the church on Kassai Square, in the Zuglo area of Budapest. "We would have played all night as well," he later recalled.

Scouts from the local BVSC team discovered him in 1965, and he spent his teenage years at the second division club, learning from the aforementioned Mezey and others. News of his talent gradually spread, and by 1974 he was the hottest young prospect in the country, with the major clubs involved in a tussle for his services.

In Cold War-era Hungary, of course, it was not about who could offer the most handsome fee, but who had the superior political connections. The young Torocsik had hoped to join Ferencvaros, who he had supported since childhood, but it looked for a while as if he would be snatched by the army team, Honved - an eventuality which the decidedly non-military youngster dreaded. But at the eleventh hour, an intervention by the Ministry of the Interior saw him transferred to the most successful Hungarian club of the era, Ujpest Dozsa.

Based in the suburbs of the city, Ujpest had gone from being a poor relation to acting as the standard-bearer of Hungarian football by the early seventies. Regular league title winners, the club were mainstays in the European Cup in this period as well, reaching the semi-finals in the year of Torocsik's arrival. Based around the world-class forward Ferenc Bene, scorer of a famous goal at the 1966 World Cup, the team featured a frontline full of internationals, including the classy playmaker Antal Dunai and the energetic wingers Laszlo Fazekas and Sandor Zambo.

It looked like Torocsik would have trouble breaking into the first team, in other words. But with Bene now over 30 and easing towards retirement, the 19-year-old Torocsik established himself in the side almost immediately, and quickly became a fan favourite. His fleet-footed evasion of defenders became the spur for a cry which would accompany him throughout his time at Ujpest: "Táncolj, Törő!" Dance, Toro!

This balletic style, remarked upon by many contemporary pundits, along with his pop-star good looks, drew inevitable comparisons with George Best. Sadly, this was not the only way in which Torocsik's career trajectory was to resemble that of the Manchester United legend.

Within a couple of years, Torocsik was a member of the national team as well, making his debut in a friendly against neighbours and rivals Austria in 1976. In early 1977, with the World Cup qualifiers beckoning, Torocsik went on a South American tour with the national side, and scored his first international goal against Peru. The last game of the tour was against the hosts of the following year's World Cup, in which a 17-year-old Diego Maradona made his debut for Argentina. 

On arrival at the airport back home, Torocsik had his first major run-in with the authorities. The youngster was already no fan of life behind the Iron Curtain, and his luggage on his return from Latin America was replete with various proscribed western goods. He was promptly banned from the national side for a year, along with his close friend Zoltan Ebedli. The veteran coach, Lajos Baroti, pleaded with the authorities to release at least one of them (Torocsik, in other words) for the upcoming qualifiers. But the commissars remained firm initially, and Hungary fought its way through a qualifying group against Greece and the USSR with Torocsik's place up front going to the powerful young Vasas striker Bela Varady.

With another young star, the midfield aerial maestro Tibor Nyilasi, in magnificent form, Hungary topped the group. But there was a final step to be negotiated before they could book their tickets to Argentina: a two-leg playoff against Bolivia. Again Baroti pressed the claims of the young Ujpest star, and this time he got his way. "Toro" would be part of the last leg of the qualifying journey.

To be continued in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 11:47 AM 0 comments