Generazione Wunderteam

Jo Araf

Description

Generazione Wunderteam is the enthralling story of the Austrian national football team of the 1930s, an innovative side that dazzled Viennese crowds and sparked a new-found passion for football both at local and international level. Although the Wunderteam was short-lived, this squad led by Hugo Meisl, one of the most prominent figures in European football, proved hugely influential. Vienna quickly became - along with Budapest and Prague - one of the world's football capitals and the birthplace of some of the greatest players of the era, including Matthias Sindelar, a centre-forward whose fame transcended football, and who was often compared to Mozart and other Viennese celebrities. Sindelar died in suspicious circumstances at age 35, after defying the Nazis. The book takes the reader on a journey through that forgotten era, examining the genesis of Hugo Meisl's side, its key figures, the historical vicissitudes of the inter-war years and the most important Viennese teams of the period.

Sujets

• Viena
• Austria
• Vienna
• Autriche

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 12 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785319594
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jo Araf, 2021
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Print ISBN 9781785318528
eBook ISBN 9781785319594
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CONTENTS
Introduction
I. At The Roots Of The Wunderteam: The Birth Of Danubian Football
II. Hugo Meisl: The Father Of Modern Football
III. The Bohemian Identity Of The Wunderteam: Immigration In The Habsburg Era
IV. The Four Viennese Sisters: Four Faces Of The Same City
V. Touching Europe s Roof: The First Wunderteam And The International Cup
VI. Matthias Sindelar: The Mozart Of Football
VII. The 1934 World Cup In Mussolini s Italy
VIII. The Connection Game And The End Of The Wunderteam
IX. The 1938 World Cup And The Call To Arms
Author s Reflections
Chronology: The Wunderteam In 11 Acts
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Photos
To my parents
INTRODUCTION
WHEN WEST Germany and Austria faced each other during the 1978 World Cup, the Austrian fans exploded with joy at the final whistle of the Israeli referee Klein. Their countrymen had prevailed in what had become Austria s most important international derby since the end of the Second World War. Austria, however, had arrived at the match without any chance of progression: they had already been eliminated by virtue of previous matches, but a victory against their historic rival gave a World Cup that ended prematurely some form of achievement. Not least because Austria were not a bad team: Herbert Prohaska, Hans Krankl and Walter Schachner among others were in a very respectable squad.
That victory, although useless, was acclaimed by all and later remembered as the Miracle of Cordoba . To speak of a miracle in relation to a defeat might seem a paradox, especially in view of the fact that Germany, after winning the World Cup in 1954 against Hungary, had renamed that sporting feat the Miracle of Bern . Moreover, although the Austrian national team in 1978 was not one of the world leaders, it boasted a tradition that most other sides could only take their hats off to. In 1954 Austria had finished third in the World Cup, and several years before the outbreak of the Second World War they had won the International Cup, a forerunner of the modern European Championships. They had been among the favourites for the 1934 World Cup, the second playing of the tournament but the first that Austria took part in. What made the Austrian line-up so popular was the Scheiberlspiel, a style of play made up of short passes and ball possession that the coach of the Austrians, Hugo Meisl, had developed and perfected over the previous 20 years.
Starting in 1931, the Austrian national team would become the Wunderteam for everyone. When they didn t win they were booed; when they did win they were convincing. On one occasion - an unenthusiastic victory against Switzerland - the press were dissatisfied with a triumph called an insufficient show for 55,000 people . Austria s fans had developed a taste for football on a par with Vienna s taste for the arts and literature. Austrian players were asked to perform in a sporting spectacle where the result would be secondary to the performance and entertainment that ensued, just like when the Viennese went to the cinema to see a film directed by Fritz Lang or attended an exhibition by Oskar Kokoschka.
But how did a national team like Austria make their mark on the most important stage of the time and earn a reputation as the world s best trainers, so much so that they were renamed the Wunderteam?
To figure that out, you have to take a few steps back. The story goes back to the founding fathers, the English, and their rival football philosophy from Scotland. Within the then Austro-Hungarian Empire it was the Scottish school that would prevail thanks to the arrival in Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia of Scottish or English players and coaches who had repudiated their school in favour of their opposite. The result was a style of play that would go down in international history as a Central European School , although the first to be fascinated were the Italians who renamed the newborn Danube football movement. Danubian football was based on a key idea: the ball had to run and not the players. In England such a system had only taken root in very few cases, and there was a strong feeling of how Austria, who would reach their football peak in the early 1930s, would be able to put England in the shadows thanks to the weapons that the British themselves had provided.
As per tradition, in 1932 - a few months after the Wunderteam had won the International Cup - Austria were invited to England, as the strongest team on the continent, for a friendly match. And as tradition had it, the English had arraanged the friendly in the winter period, so that the playing field was more suited to their style. Austria lost, but both the English and Austrian newspapers spared no praise for the formation coached by Hugo Meisl.
But it was not only the technique of its interpreters and a refined style of play that made training cutting-edge: in the years between the two wars, Austria faced high unemployment and continuous lay-offs along with perpetual political instability. Football had become a distraction from the daily routine, and by 1924 it had become a source of income for players thanks to the efforts of Meisl, who had made the Austrian league a professional one. The same evolution would be observed within two years in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, two other countries that emerged with broken bones from the First World War and had suffered as much as Austria.
I
AT THE ROOTS OF THE WUNDERTEAM: THE BIRTH OF DANUBIAN FOOTBALL
Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire - which stretched over an area of about 70,000km 2 and included, among others, present-day Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic - frequent invectives were directed from Vienna to its Hungarian neighbours. The dominant thought among the upper classes of Viennese society was that Budapest was a sort of younger sister of Vienna, poorer and backward. This stereotypical and derogatory view was summed up in the words of the politician and traveller Francz Von L her, There is no cultural idea, neither of a legal, military, state, religious, social, artistic or scientific nature, nor of any other field from Hungary that has spread to the civilised world. The truth is that the Hungarians have remained the same commercially as they were a thousand years ago, when their camps stood out along the Asian steppes. Austrian anti-Semites, moreover, used to refer to Budapest as Judapest , claiming it was a city of gypsies and Jews . The then Czechoslovakia and the Bohemian and Moravian economic migrants who had settled in the suburbs of Vienna were also targeted. Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna, Hitler s inspirer and creator of the Christian Social Party, in reference to the migration flows from Bohemia and Moravia said, Vienna must continue to be Germanic and the Germanic character of the city must not be questioned. In 1897, the founding of the Challenge Cup was to re-propose these bitter rivalries for the first time in football.
1
FOOTBALL IN Austria was developed on the English model in the last years of the 19th century and spread from some elite circles in Vienna. The spread was progressive and involved suburbs, smaller cities and rural areas. The growth of other sports alongside football included disciplines such as horse riding - galloping had appeared in 1839 and trotting in 1878 - gymnastics, running and the notorious Viennese ice skating school. Later, alpine sports, climbing, cycling, athletics and grass tennis would also became popular.
But within a few years football had reached peaks of popularity never seen before, thanks to its ability to spread in Vienna first and, later, within the whole country. If before the Great War sport had been almost exclusively for the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, with the advent of the conflict it began to take root at the front and in the prison camps as a pastime among soldiers. With the end of hostilities and the birth of the First Austrian Republic, it became one of the activities through which men at labour camps used to spend their free time.
Thanks to new laws that allowed workers more flexible hours and a shorter working day, an increasing number of sports clubs emerged in the cities and suburbs. The interest of the population in sport had been strengthened by the war experience: the desire and opportunity to dedicate oneself to recreational and sporting activities in groups had never been shared as much as in the years following the Great War. And it was thanks to sport that a climate of solidarity and a sense of community, accompanied by participation in various disciplines, was generated both in bourgeois circles and in factory environments. It was precisely in this context that in 1931 Vienna would organise the second edition of the Olympic Games of the Workers.
The birth of Viennese football was the work of the English founding fathers. They were the first to play football in the Austrian capital and were employee