Before the war, he played as a midfielder for MTK Hungária FC, SC Hakoah Wien, and several clubs in the United States.

Guttmann pioneered the 4–2–4 formation along with Márton Bukovi and Gusztáv Sebes, forming a triumvirate of radical Hungarian coaches, and is also credited with mentoring young Eusébio at Benfica, following the player's graduation as a footballer at Sporting Lourenço Marques.

He was sacked by Milan while they were top of Serie A,[citation needed] and he walked out on Benfica after they reportedly refused a request for a pay rise, leaving the club with a "curse".

[10] Playing halfback or center half alongside Gyula Mándi, he helped MTK win Hungarian League titles in 1920 and 1921.

Several hundreds of people were killed, many of them were Jewish in a campaign known as the White Terror, orchestrated by the Hungarian nationalist government.

[11][12] For the team's shirts, they wore the blue and white of the Zionist national movement, and a large Star of David was their badge.

[4] In April 1926, the SC Hakoah Wien squad sailed to New York to begin a ten-match tour of the United States.

In the fall of 1930 Guttmann rejoined the Giants, now known as the New York Soccer Club, but was back at the All-Stars in the spring of 1931 where he finished his career as a player.

[11] As well as playing football, while in New York, Guttmann also taught dance, bought into a speakeasy, invested in the stock market, and almost lost everything after the Wall Street crash of 1929.

[20][21][22] Between 1921 and 1924, Guttmann played six times for the Hungary national football team, scoring on his debut on 5 June 1921 in a 3–0 win against Germany.

[23] He also complained that the hotel was more suitable for socialising than match preparation, and to demonstrate his disapproval he hung dead rats on the doors of the travelling officials.

[26][27][28] Guttmann returned to Europe in 1932 and in the years before the outbreak of the Second World War he coached teams in Austria, The Netherlands, and Hungary.

[30][12][31] Years later, he reminisced: "Our sergeant ... [had] learned how to torture people... Was I a footballer from the national team, was I a successful coach?

[12][30] For many years the story of what happened to him during the Holocaust was unclear, until David Bolchover wrote about it in his biography of Guttman, titled The Greatest Comeback.

In November 1948, Guttmann attempted to take off fullback Mihály Patyi at whose ungentlemanly play he was furious, leaving the team with 10 players.

With a team that included Gunnar Nordahl, Nils Liedholm, and Juan Alberto Schiaffino, Guttmann had them top of Serie A 19 games into his second season in charge when a string of disputes with the board led to his dismissal.

Before finally retiring as coach, Guttmann would return to South America to manage Peñarol in 1962;[30][34] he was replaced in October by Peregrino Anselmo, who guided the side to the Uruguayan League title that very year.

He took charge of FC Porto and helped them overhaul a five-point lead enjoyed by Benfica to win his first of three Portuguese League titles in 1959.

The statue made by Hungarian sculptor László Szatmári Juhos was placed at door 18 of the Estádio da Luz.

[40] After the 1962 European Cup final, Guttmann reportedly approached the Benfica board of directors and asked for a pay rise.

[44] Before the 1990 final, played in Vienna, Eusébio reportedly prayed at Guttmann's grave and asked for the curse to be broken.

[43] The curse had its origins in March 1968 when A Bola published a loose and unsigned translation from German to Portuguese of an interview given by Guttmann to Sport-Illustrierte five months earlier, in October 1967.