Leopold printer

Leopold Drucker (born February 22, 1903 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary , † February 25, 1988 in New York , United States ) was an Austrian national soccer player and later soccer coach .

Career

Leopold Drucker began his career in the youth team of SC Hakoah Vienna, which was still second class at the time . He had his first assignment in the fighting team of the Hakoah, who had just been promoted to the top division, in December 1920, where he immediately scored a goal on debut. Subsequently, however, he was only used very sporadically in the first team and mostly played in the reserve. Since after the commitment of the Hungarian international Béla Guttmann the future prospects of a regular place as a middle runner looked very bad, Drucker decided to change clubs and from 1923 played at Floridsdorfer AC, who had been relegated to the second class . However, the immediate promotion was narrowly missed, and the Floridsdorfers were only able to secure their first class again in the following season. Drucker immediately became a regular player and was mostly in the starting line-up in the first division season 1925/26 . During this season, Drucker was also called up twice for the Viennese city selection and was used in September 1925 against Krakow and in March 1926 against Pressburg.

Leopold Drucker's former association Hakoah prepared their first trip to America in the spring of 1926 and, in view of the dense program and the high propaganda effect of the tour, wanted to send a strong and balanced cadre to America. Since the original intention of hiring Kálmán Konrád from the amateurs could not be realized, Drucker was brought back from the FAC. He played a championship game for the Krieauer before leaving before he left for America with the team. The tour was a huge success with the public and resulted in a number of Hakoah players - including Drucker - being offered contracts by US clubs. Drucker accepted the Brooklyn Wanderers' offer and moved to New York.

His former club colleagues József Eisenhoffer , Alexander Neufeld and Heinrich Schönfeld as well as Kálmán Konrád also switched to the Wanderers . Drucker played two seasons for the Wanderers in the ASL before some clubs split off as part of the Soccer War in 1928 and the competition league ESL was founded. Drucker switched to the newly founded New York Hakoah (also called Hakoah All-Stars after a merger ), where the former players of the Wiener Hakoah, who had previously worked for various US clubs, came together again. In 1929 he won the US Open Cup with the New York Hakoah , where he was used as a middle runner in the final first leg against St. Louis Madison Kennels , and stayed with the club even after the merger of ESL and ASL. In total, Drucker played 136 games in the ASL.

In 1931 Leopold Drucker returned to his home club Hakoah and was particularly involved in the spring in ensuring that the club managed to stay in the league. In July 1932 he was called up for the first time in the Austrian national team and he played in the 4-3 win against Sweden in Stockholm . Although the newspapers reported that Drucker was doing very well, this was his only national team appearance, not least because of the strong competition that prevailed at the time. Leopold Drucker was therefore the only Hakoah player who came to play in the national team during the wonder team era.

In 1933 Drucker left the Hakoah for the third time and - after a brief return to the FAC - moved to the French professional league at Olympique Marseille together with the previous Hakoah trainer and former Austrian national player Vinzenz Dittrich . At Marseille he also played again with his former teammate Jószef Eisenhoffer (this was already the fifth joint career stage of the two). In the 1933/34 season, Drucker played 16 league games for Marseille and reached the final in the national cup , which was lost 2-1 to FC Sète .

After the end of this season he moved to Malta, which he already knew from a tour with the FAC. In the next few years Drucker worked as a player and coach at Floriana FC , St. George's FC and FC Melita . After the outbreak of World War II, he was deported to Palestine, where he worked as a player and coach in Jerusalem. After the end of the war, he moved to New York, where he was still in 1947 as a middle runner for the Athletic Club Hakoah .

successes

• 1 × Austrian second division champion: 1925
• 1 × US Open Cup winner : 1929
• 1 × French cup finalist : 1934
• 1 × Maltese Cup winner: 1939 (as coach of Melita)
• 1 × Maltese second division champion: 1938 (as coach of Melita)
• 3 × Maltese amateur cup winners: 1937, 1938 and 1940 (as coach of Melita)