Derby will be like a tea party after witch hunt in Uganda, says Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo

Dec 28 2008 By Gordon Waddell

CSABA LASZLO faces 180 minutes of skull-crushing pressure as he starts 2009 with two Edinburgh derbies in a week.

But he insists they're nothing compared to the days when he had witch doctors cursing his players during the national anthem and scattering the bones of dead relatives in his goalmouths.

The Hearts manager has experienced some of the game's most bitter rivalries as a player and boss, from the violence-scarred Budapest battles between Ferencvaros and Ujpest, through Borussia Moenchengladbach's clashes with Cologne to the hatred of a Hungary-Romania international - and loved the mall.

But Laszlo never saw the true meaning of a ritual rivalry until he became boss of Uganda - and started taking on neighbours like Rwanda and Angola.

And as Csaba cranked himself up for Saturday's Tynecastle tussle he laughed: "The witch doctors are part of the culture over there.

"Just before I arrived Uganda had played Rwanda - I think they kicked off at three o'clock and the game finished at seven.

"A Ugandan player took a shot from about five metres out and it hit both posts then came back out. He found some small bones in the net and this was from a Rwandan witch doctor to stop the ball crossing the line.

"It started a big fight because he tried to take the bones out of the net then people invaded the field and the players refused to play on.

"Later the same player shot and hit the bar but the ball came down on the wrong side of the line again.

"Then they found bones in the other net - it was a circus.

"In Nigeria we lost 1-0 and in the last minute had a goal chalked off - all the time you had witch doctors running up and down in front of your bench!

"The papers were saying they had won the game for Nigeria.

"We used them too though. We were at home to Angola and when the national anthems were playing a witch doctor danced in front of the opposition and they looked one way then the other - they daren't look at his eyes.

"When we played them away I was in our hotel at 11pm looking for my assistant Jackson Mayanja but couldn't find him anywhere.

"He's an intelligent guy and at about midnight I was thinking this isn't normal. Eventually he walked in and I said 'Where were you?'

"He replied 'Oh nowhere, just out, feeling the atmosphere.' But he was at the stadium, he'd been given a thing by a witch doctor and was putting it in both goals.

"Eventually Mayanga told me not to to say anything, that this is the culture you have to accept - and we won 3-1."

But Laszlo insists Africa doesn't have a monopoly on weird ways to wind yourself up for big games.

He said: "I'm not superstitious but I've had players who were. One guy in the Bundesliga, for every game, he peed on his boots!

"Then there was Thomas Strunz at Bayern Munich who played without socks, summer or winter!

"I've seen players pray for 10 minutes before games - not just Muslims, Christians as well.

"And I had one guy who lay in a jacuzzi in a dressing-room before kick-off with his music on for half an hour - and there was no water in it! But that's okay - whatever you need to get you through a game."

The Romanian knows what it will take to get through these derbies though - the first in the SPL, the second a cup crunch at Easter Road - and the first thing is for his foreign stars to wake up from minute one.

He said: "The lads who aren't from Edinburgh maybe don't understand the thing between Hibs and Hearts but players like Christophe Berra, Lee Wallace and Robbie Neilson go into it with a different attitude.

"Guys like Christian Nade, Laryea Kingston and Eggert Jonsson must understand the difference, they must feel something special in the air. If only three or four players feel the derby spirit and the rest treat it like a normal game you can lose.

"In the first match against Hibs this season we lost a goal in the opening minute and I saw guys in my team who hadn't woken up.

"After the goal, especially Nade and Bruno Aguiar, they woke up, saw the faces of the fans and realised they must do more.

"It's important to know in derbies that even if you draw someone loses. Winning is all that matters.

"We have two of these games in a week so it's vital to win the first and take confidence into the next.

"And the second isn't just a derby, it's a cup game - you lose a lot if you go out."

Taken from the Sunday Mail