Gyula Mándi, also referred to as Mándi Gyula or Julius Mandel was a Hungarian Olympic footballer, who played as a defender, and manager. He was Jewish.
Playing career
Club
Mándi was born in Budapest, Hungary. He was part of the greatest era of MTK, the 1920s and 1930s. He played alongside the likes of Franz Platko, Béla Guttmann, Gusztáv Sebes, Jenő Kálmár, Imre Schlosser, Iuliu Baratky and Ferenc Sas. Between 1919 and 1925 he won seven consecutive championships with MTK. The professionalisation of the game in Hungary weakened MTK's absolute dominance, but they remained amongst the leading sides. Until the end of his career in 1937, he could celebrate three more championships. Between 1923 and 1933, he also won cups with the club; altogether, Mándi made 325 appearances for MTK.
International
Mándi's career with the Hungarian national football team commenced in June 1921 with a match against Germany. Soon he featured regularly in the side, forming the defense together with Károly Fogl. Hungary participated in the football tournament of the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Hungary's hopes rose after a decisive first round win over Poland. However, a sensational 0–3 defeat at the hands of Egypt in the second stage ended the aspirations of the Magyars. Mándi played in both matches. A knee injury prevented Mándi from continuing his international career until 1929, when he again featured regularly until 1932, including five matches for the Central European International Cup. After missing out on further nominations for a two years, he returned once more to the Hungarian side for a World Cup qualifier against Bulgaria in 1934. Altogether he played 31 times for his country.
Coaching career
After retiring as a player, Mándi became a coach and was the nominal manager of Hungary during the era of the Mighty Magyars. However, his former MTK team mate, Gusztáv Sebes, who outranked him as the Deputy Minister of Sport, had the final say in the major decisions and was effectively in charge. In mid August 1957 Mándi became coach of America FC in Rio de Janeiro. His spell there with a mid-table placing at the State Championship of Rio 1957 and a joint last place at the Rio-São Paulo Tournament of 1958 was considered unsatisfactory and ended at the end of April 1958. Between 1959 and 1964, Mandi had two spells as coach of Israel, with whom he reached the final of the 1960 Asian Cup.
