Levente Szántai and Péter Andorka finished their professional career. We said goodbye to them before the derby.
Szántai Levente, former squad member of the hungarian national team, started his professional career in Újpest and was the goalkeeper of MTK, Diósgyőr and Mezőkövesd. In 2008, Erwin Koeman, the head coach of the Hungarian Nsational Team at that time, called him up to the squad of the national team for the games against Greece and Croatia. Levente joined Szeged in 2015. Since then, he wore the shirt of our club 112 times, rescued the team from a lot of possible goals and made the opponent strikers go crazy. During his time at our club, he started to learn psychology at the university of Szeged and in the future he will help the players in their mental preparation. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, LEVI!
What’s the two most memorable matches in Szeged?
Szántai Levente: “One of the two was that year, when Puskás Akadémia made to the top flight and to be able to celebrate it at home, they should have won against us three rounds before the end of the league. The match ended with a goalless draw at Pancho Aréna, and we made a really good team performance on the field. Otherwise, we conceeded the less goals out of the 20 teams, altough finished at the 12th place.
The other one was a match against Zalaegerszeg at home, which we managed to win with 2-0 and I remember, I got my shoulder dislocated in the previous round. I didn’t trained all week, I could hardly lift my arm up. Our coach at that time, László Klausz despite this, put me into the starting eleven, and I took the game on. During the game, I prayed inside to get shoots on my right side, because i had no idea about what could happen if i had to make a save on my left side. Finally, I only got two shoot, both of them to my right side, and I managed to save them!”
What’s your best not match-related memory?
Sz. L. :”I spent 4 and a half year in Gyula and the best memories are obviously the common cookings organized by Tomi Germán at the Lake Borosgyáni. Angled, played cards and games, ate a lot and of course discussed the actual situation of the team. We didn’t need to organize team building activities, because our captain organized everything. However, one of my coolers is still at him, I left it at the fishing lake, but I think, I can say goodbye to it :-)!”
Why did you decided that, you are staying at the club and what’s your expectations of this next chapter in your life?
Sz. L. :” Our Sportdirector, Adam Kapic said to me three years ago that he would count on me after finishing my professional career. The club continuosly supported my studies at the university, in my opinion, in a unique way at this level. I’m really grateful for having been employed at the academy as a freshly graduated psychologist, so therefore a nice transition can happen from being a professional footballer to being a psychologist. In the goal, I always strived for being better and better and I will continue it as a psychologist. My aim is firstly to work with youth players to gain experinence and after accomplishing the sportpsychologist training, I would like to work in senior football.“
Source: https://www.szeged-grosicsakademia.hu/hir/1445/koszonjuk-levi-koszonjuk-peti
