Lajos Czeizler was born in Heves, then in Austria-Hungary, on 5 October 1893 and died on 6 May 1969. A goalkeeper of modest achievement with Vác in the early 1920s, he became one of the great itinerant coaches of the Central European school. He worked at ŁKS Łódź, Udinese, Faenza and Lazio's youth section before the war, then spent the 1940s in Sweden, winning five championships with IFK Norrköping. At Milan between 1949 and 1952 he took charge of the Gre-No-Li side, winning the 1950/51 scudetto, the club's first in forty-four years, and the Latin Cup. He later coached Italy at the 1954 World Cup, Sampdoria, and Fiorentina, with whom he won the Coppa Italia in 1961.

He came to Benfica for the 1963/64 season, at the age of sixty-nine, taking over a side that had lost the previous European Cup final. He was in charge for a single campaign and 43 matches, winning 34 of them, a rate of 79 per cent that is the best of any coach in the club's history over a full season. Benfica won the double: the national championship and the Taça de Portugal, the latter secured in his final match, a 6-2 win over Porto in the final on 5 July 1964.

He inherited a squad of exceptional attacking talent and did not tamper with it, favouring quick vertical passing through the middle and giving Eusébio and the forwards licence to move, while insisting on the professional discipline he had learned in Italy and Sweden. He left after the one season and effectively retired soon afterwards, one of the very few coaches to have won championships in Hungary's orbit, Sweden, Italy and Portugal.