Emmanuel Thomas I Sunday, July 30, 2023
DUSSELDORF – Hertha Berlin made German football history on Saturday night when all three sons of coach Pal Dardai were on pitch in the closing stages of their 1-0 second-division defeat at Fortuna Düsseldorf.
Marton Dardai was in the starting 11, brother Palko came on in the 29th and teenager Bence in the 76th minute.
“Fate wanted it to be that way,” father Pal Dardai said post-match.
“That is the story of my family. My father already used to play with my brother in Hungary. That’s normal for us. I also played together with my brother before I came to Germany.
“And now, having been at Hertha for so long all the children are Hertha men.”
Palko Dardai returned from Hungary to the relegated Bundesliga club recently to be reunited with his brothers. The biggest surprise on Saturday was the debut of 17-year-old Bence in an official match.
Pal Dardai, a long-time Hertha player and now in his latest term as coach, said that “Bence worked hard for it” as he shrugged off any suggestions of preferential treatment.
“I didn’t renew Marton’s contract and I didn’t bring Palko back. They all wanted to be Hertha men, they would have earned more elsewhere. It is not my fault, it is not my wife’s fault,” Dardai said.
He added that as a coach he was happy that all three have the quality to play at this level but that “as a father I feel nothing. They only thing I feel is that we lacked a goal.”
