Albeit indirectly, Hungarian football fans also bask in a tiny ray of glory following Chelsea’s second Champions League win. Former Hungarian national team defender Zsolt Lőw, who is the assistant coach of the London club, told Hungarian sports channel M4 that his current position is probably worth more than being head coach at a lesser team.
“I think we are at the absolute very top of football. I have the opportunity to work with a sensational coach, with whom I not only have a good professional relationship, but we are also friends,” Lőw said. Asked by M4 whether he would use his growing reputation to seek a head coach position elsewhere, he said that would be a very tough decision.
“This is so much more than a coaching post. One has to think long and hard if one is about leave this very high level where trophies can be collected and won, and where one’s country is proud of him, just to step down one or even two levels,” Lőw said.
Zsolt Lőw (42), a former defender of Hungarian football club Újpest and 25-time member of the Hungarian national team, later in his career played at several German clubs (Energie Cottbus, Hansa Rostock, 1899 Hoffenheim and Mainz) and started his coaching career at a small Austrian club.
He eventually joined Thomas Tuchel as assistant coach when the German manager took over Paris Saint-Germain in 2018, and they brought the French club to the Champions League final. They both transferred to Chelsea this January.
“It’s an amazing journey we’ve taken, everything happened very quickly. It was our thirtieth match we played during those four months,” Lőw said. On Saturday, Chelsea beat Manchester City in the Champions League final 1-0, winning the trophy for the second time after the previous one in 2012.
Title image: Zsolt Löw, the Hungarian assistant coach of Chelsea. (source: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons)
