L.A. museum highlights Jewish roots that shaped world's most popular soccer styles

Béla Guttmann may be the most consequential soccer coach you’ve never heard of.But if it weren’t for Guttmann, you may never have heard of Pelé.And Brazil may never have become the greatest soccer-playing country on Earth.That’s because Guttmann changed the shape of modern Brazilian soccer — and changed the sport forever — when he imported the revolutionary 4-2-4 system from Hungary to Sao Paulo in 1957.

A year later, Brazil won the first of five World Cups and the joga bonito was born.But what Guttmann brought to Brazil isn’t nearly as interesting as how he got it there.That’s just one of the fascinating stories in “The Beautiful Game ...

The Untold Story,” the exhibit that will open the Holocaust Museum LA on Sunday at the Goldrich Cultural Center, a $70-million expansion that will double the size of the Pan Pacific Park museum’s campus to 70,000 square feet.The exhibit was unveiled during a private reception on Saturday followed by a free preview day open to the public from 10 a.m.to 5 p.m.

The grand public opening will take place in August.The show’s launch coincides with eight local World Cup matches, which kicked off with the United States’ 4-1 win over Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium, and it shines a light on the important but largely overlooked relationship between Jewish life and the global game, as well as how Jewish innovators like Guttmann shaped the modern rhythm, style and culture of the sport.“It was in the same intellectual level as jazz, as art and everything modern and progressive,” journalist Allon Sander, who helped curate the exhibit, said of Jewish participation in European soccer in the years before World War II.“The origin of the game and how it intersects with Jews and the Holocaust and the impact that these Jewish footballers and coaches had to shape the game and help popularize the sport is so fascinating,” added Beth Kean, the museum’s CEO.“And it’s an unknown history.” Entertainment &...