Alfred Bickel

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Alfred Bickel in 1950

Alfred "Fredy" Bickel (born May 12, 1918 in Eppstein ; † August 18, 1999 ) was a Swiss football player and football coach . From 1935 to 1956 he played in the first team at Grasshopper Club Zurich for 21 seasons. During this period he won the championship seven times with GC , eight times the cup (in 1956 he was not a member of the final eleven) and celebrated the double with the "Hoppers" in 1937, 1942, 1943, 1952 and 1956. In the national team , the technically and playfully outstanding offensive player completed 71 international matches from 1936 to 1954, scoring 15 goals. He took part in the soccer world championships in France in 1938 and in Brazil in 1950 with the “Nati” . The Association of Swiss Sports Journalists awarded the NLA's record goal scorer with 202 goals in 1953 as the first footballer to be named "Most Meritorious Sportsman in the Country". He found his final resting place in the Altstetten cemetery .

career

Association, 1935 to 1956

"Fredy" Bickel moved from the Zurich suburb Sport-Verein Seebach to the Grasshopper Club Zurich in November 1935 at the age of 17. At the same time, the Austrian instructor Karl Rappan took over the training management for the blue and white. The successful joint work for the "Hoppers" lasted until 1948. In the second game year, 1936/37 , Rappan and the young national player celebrated - on June 18, 1936 the talent made his debut in the international match in Oslo against Norway (2-1 win) in the team of the "Rotjacken" - Bickel the first double with GC . The young player benefited from being on the side of experts like goalkeeper Willy Huber , the defenders Severino Minelli / Walter Weiler , the runners Hermann Springer , Sirio Vernati , Sigmund Guttormsen and the attackers Fritz Wagner , Max "Xam" Abegglen , Eugen Rupf and Heinrich Vita was able to play in the NLA in his early years. The championship went to FC Lugano in 1938, but they won the next cup with a 5-1 win in the playoff on June 19, 1938 against Servette FC . The series of successes with his club continued in cooperation with coach Rappan until round 1946. There were four more championships in 1939, 1942, 1943 and 1945, as well as five additional cup victories from 1940 to 1943 in a row and on April 22, 1946 with a 3-0 win over Lausanne-Sports .

With coach Willi Treml and fellow attackers Robert Ballaman and Roger Vonlanthen , “Goldfuss” Bickel achieved another double success with the NLA returnees GC in the 1951/52 series . When the World Cup was held in Switzerland in 1954, the veteran, also known as the “Rastelli des turf”, made 25 league appearances at GC and scored 12 goals. In the league it was enough with one point behind FC La Chaux-de-Fonds with the blue-whites in the 1953/54 season for the runner-up. In addition to the championship and cup successes, the appearances in the national team, the world tour from December 26, 1954 to February 17, 1955 with stops in 21 different countries was of particular importance for the GC record player.

"Fredy" Bickel - he distinguished himself on the pitch with flank and corner balls, subtle ball handling, astonishing body deception and, moreover, through rare performance constancy and loyalty to the club - played again in his 21st season in 1955/56 with 13 appearances and two goals at the side of the teammates Karl Elsener , Werner Hüssy , Branislav Vukosavljević and Robert Ballaman to the renewed double success of the "Hoppers".

His brother Reinhard was a left winger in the 1946 Cup winners' eleven - 3-0 victory in the final on April 22nd against Lausanne-Sports - and son Thomas made 52 appearances in the national team from 1986 to 1995. In 1956 he ended his active career after more than 1,000 games. Bickel had an excellent reputation as a team player and remained loyal to the Grasshoppers despite many foreign offers. Most recently, "Fredy" Bickel lived on Kalchbühlstrasse in the Wollishofen district in Zurich.

He worked repeatedly at GC as an interim trainer.

National team, 1936 to 1954

Having just turned 18, the young GC attacker made his debut on June 18, 1936 in the international match in Oslo against Norway (2-1 win) on the right wing in the national team. His first goal in the "Nati" he scored three days later, on June 21 in Stockholm, in the friendly game against Sweden, which he lost 5-2. The young player stormed alongside Paul Aebi, Numa Mounard, Max Abegglen and Vincenzo Ciseri. When his club coach Karl Rappan first supervised the Swiss selection on September 19, 1937 in Vienna in the game against Austria and Eugène Walaschek made his debut, he was also active in the 3-4 defeat. In the 2-2 draw on October 31, 1937 in Geneva against Italy, he was eliminated in the 28th minute due to a collarbone fracture and returned to the selection on February 6, 1938 in the remarkable 1-1 draw against Germany in Cologne back. Rappan relied on "building blocks" and competed with the seven GC players Willy Huber , Severino Minelli , August Lehmann , Hermann Springer , Sirio Vernati , Fritz Wagner and "Fredy" Bickel against the DFB team of Reich trainer Sepp Herberger .

Immediately before the World Cup tournament in France, the "Nati" competed on May 21 in his hometown of Zurich against the "football motherland" England. In addition to the "Swiss bar" , Rappan also had the tactical variant with the "hanging center forward" ready and Bickel brought the men around Eddie Hapgood , Stanley Matthews and Cliff Bastin out of the concept with his playful ability . The two goals by Georges Aeby and André Abegglen sensationally brought about a 2-1 success for the "Rotjacken". At the age of 20 Bickel played the World Cup tournament in 1938. In the 4-2 success in the replay on June 9 against Greater Germany, he scored the 2-2 equalizer in the 63rd minute. The GC talent was used in all three World Cup games against Germany (2 games) and the subsequent finalists Hungary. In 1939 he was in the two 3-1 successes - each in Zurich - against runner-up world champions Hungary (April 2) and world champions Italy (November 12). Other notable games with the "Nati" were the international matches on February 1, 1942 against Germany (2-1 win), July 21, 1945 against England (3-1 win), and November 10, 1946 against Austria (1-0 win) Victory), May 18, 1947 against England (1-0 victory), May 17, 1948 against Scotland (2-1 victory) and the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. In South America he was part of coach Franco Andreoli's team in the group matches against Yugoslavia (3-0 defeat) and on June 25 in Sao Paulo in a sensational 2-2 draw (two goals by Jacques Fatton ) against hosts Brazil . After the World Cup in Brazil, he was also on November 22, 1950 in Stuttgart in front of 115,000 spectators at the DFB's first international match after the Second World War in the Swiss national team. As captain, he and his German colleague Andreas Kupfer led the teams onto the field.

When he played in Zurich on May 30, it was the last preparatory international match for the "Nati" before the 1954 World Cup, "Fredy" Bickel said goodbye after his 71st international match (15 goals) against the Netherlands (3-1 win; three Goals by Roger Vonlanthen ) after 18 years from the national team. The SFV nominated the attackers Charles Antenen , Robert Ballaman , Norbert Eschmann , Jacques Fatton , Josef Hügi , Eugen Meier , Marcel Mauron , Ferdinando Riva and Roger Vonlanthen for the tournament and waived the 36-year-old veteran from Zurich.

literature

  • Beat Jung (Ed.): The Nati. The history of the Swiss national football team. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-89533-532-0 .
  • Swiss Football League (Philippe Guggisberg): 75 years of the Swiss Football League. 2009, ISBN 978-3-9523556-0-2 .
  • International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS): Switzerland (1905–1940). International matches.
  • Henry Eggenberger: Grasshopper Club Zurich (ed.). 100 years of Grasshopper Club Zurich, 1986
  • Jordan / Lenz: The 100 of the century. Soccer player. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 1996, ISBN 3-499-16458-2 , pp. 28/29

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ GC book, page 81
  2. ^ Michael Horn: Lexicon of international soccer stars. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89533-466-9 , p. 40.
personal data
SURNAME Bickel, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bickel, Fredy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss football player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Eppstein , Germany
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1999