The following is a translation of an opinion piece written by journalist Gergő Kovács, originally published on Mandiner.hu.
The reputation of Hungarian football continues to soar: Szoboszlai could mean to Hungary what Messi means to Argentina or Modrić to Croatia.
Dominik Szoboszlai, the Hungarians’ young football hero, is just 22 years old. Even if Liverpool FC, one of the most famous brands and football teams on earth, had targeted the Hungarian National Team captain a few years later, we would have been just as happy, but this way we can be overjoyed as he has even more time left in the crème de la crème of football:
the top football teams are always the focus of attention—their events are followed by millions, sometimes hundreds of millions.
No kidding: Liverpool signing Szoboszlai holds wonderful prospects for the future, in every sense.
Liverpool can only be compared to the following teams in terms of reputation, popularity, past, likely future, and pretty much everything else: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Bayer Munich, and Manchester United.
These are (also) the greatest clubs historically speaking. Even the newly pumped-up teams would take decades to get to this level, let alone the rest, but they cannot fake history from nothing. Manchester City, Chelsea, or PSG are on their way up there, but not yet there.
After Ferenc Puskás (Real), Sándor Kocsis (Barca), and Zoltán Czibor (Barca),
this is the first time a Hungarian star footballer will be part of a star team.
Not as a junior, not as a storekeeper, not as a make-up artist, not as a tactical substitute or an extra—although even being those with Liverpool is success cubed—but as a core player of the team.
Dominik Szoboszlai managed to climb the ladder. And so did Hungary.
Because even in the harrowing, drooling, black-and-white years of our times, while football has immense advertising value, and is a powerful country image-builder, or whatever we call it, it is still a pure source of childish joy and adult passion, cleansed of politics. And this is so totally independently from whether certain politicians or political figures like it a lot or not so much.
Football shakes off the glaze of public sweatiness, and breaks the ever-so-gloomy intellectual merry-go-round: it bursts bubbles.
Beyond that, and most importantly,
football has a mythic quality: it can override ‘other realities’,
and it has the ability to create the character of a country in the eyes of outsiders, who mostly decide merely on impulse. Football is one of the most powerful mind-altering substances: it has its own laws, it acts as a source of law, and its power is unquestioned.
Let’s take a moment to recall the probably colourful, exciting, and cool image of Argentina in ourselves. And now let’s take Messi and Maradona out of it.
What remains? On the one hand, a series of pampas, tango, and Evita Perón, the Argentinian First Lady, but on the other, just a series of state bankruptcies. There is no question that we would have a radically different image of Argentina without its great football heroes. And we would have a different image of Croatia without Modrić and Hungary without Puskás.
In short, Szoboszlai’s transfer to the Premier League and one of the classiest clubs in the world will further enhance the reputation of Hungarian football:
it can lead more Hungarian talents toward a brighter future, break the optics, create new football legends,
and make hundreds of children and adults roam the world in Szoboszlai jerseys.
And, in terms of national image, Szoboszlai could mean to Hungary what Messi means to Argentina or Modrić to Croatia: more than any political ploy.
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