Béla Réthy talks about the darkest moment of his career: "Incredibly difficult to put into words"

Created: 2022-12-14 05:31

By: Antonio Jose Riether

Béla Réthy retires after the World Cup semifinals.

Before he left, the legendary television voice spoke about his most difficult moment in over thirty years for ZDF.

Mainz/Doha - millions of Germans know his voice.

Béla Réthy has been a live commentator on ZDF since 1991 and has accompanied the German team at all tournaments since 1996.

From 1996 to 2018, the native of Vienna commented on all finals of the World and European Championships broadcast by ZDF.

However, after this year's World Cup in Qatar, Réthy will retire. In an interview, the legendary TV voice spoke about the most difficult moment of his long career.

Béla Réthy: Commentator talks about his hardest moment before leaving ZDF

To say goodbye to the big TV stage, Réthy gave an interview to the sports information service in which he spoke about his career and the change in sports journalism caused by the new media.

In addition, the 65-year-old discussed his most difficult moment as a commentator, as reported by tz.de.

When asked about the most oppressive moment of his professional career, Réthy apparently didn't have to think long.

Only last year he experienced the collapse of the Danish national team captain Christian Eriksen live during a European Championship broadcast.

The then Inter Milan star suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of the game against Finland and had to be resuscitated on the field while his teammates, some of whom burst into tears, were observed.

"Everyone was shocked": Béla Réthy commented on Christian Eriksen's cardiac arrest

"Yes, by a large margin," Réthy answered the question.

“It was incredibly difficult to put into words what happened.

Everyone was shocked, including me, of course, as a reporter, because nobody can prepare for such a situation.” The medical emergency, which happened during the Danes’ first group game at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, caused a long interruption in the Réthy had to continue commenting for a while.

Réthy was subsequently praised for his level-headed reaction in particular.

"We can't think of a football game, we don't want to think about that at all," the commentator said into the microphone during the broadcast on June 12, 2021, before he gave back to the ZDF studio.

Previously, he had let the pictures speak for themselves, now he explained his approach.

Béla Réthy has commented on football matches for ZDF since 1991.

© Chai vd Laage/imago

Semifinals at the end: Béla Réthy ended her television career on her 66th birthday

“It was very difficult to get reliable information.

And I definitely didn't want to speculate about anything," the sports journalist told SID.

“The information we got from sources has been verified twenty more times.

And then sometimes silence is just the thing.”

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A long chapter ends for Réthy in Qatar.

In the semifinals on Wednesday evening in Al-Chaur between the defending champions France and the underdog Morocco, he commented on his last football game for ZDF.

And of all things on his 66th birthday.

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ZDF commentator Béla Réthy talks about plans after the end of his career

Réthy already has concrete plans for the time immediately after leaving the microphone.

"I'll have a visit from my family over Christmas, I'll let the World Cup sink in.

I've made up my mind not to do anything for a few months."

For the more distant future, however, he has no precise intentions, as he has previously noted.

"1.

I will officially be retired in January.

But it may be that I will do one or the other in the medium term.” At the home European Championship in 2024, where Réthy is not expecting a second summer fairy tale, he will be sitting in front of the television as a spectator for the first time.