Fritz Künzli

Fritz Künzli
Künzli (2004)
Personnel
birthday	January 8, 1946
place of birth	Glarus ,  Switzerland
date of death	22nd December 2019
Place of death	Zurich ,  Switzerland
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1955-1961	FC Glarus
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1961-1964	FC Glarus
1964-1973	FC Zurich	213 (158)
1973-1976	FC Winterthur	52 0(15)
1976-1988	FC Lausanne Sports	38 0(26)
1978	San Diego Sockers	2 00(1)
1978	Houston Hurricane	8 00(2)
1978-1979	FC Lausanne Sports	9 00(2)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1965-1977	Switzerland	44 (15)
1 Only league games are given.

Fritz Künzli (born January 8, 1946 in Glarus ; † December 22, 2019 in Zurich ) was a Swiss football player who won the Swiss football championship twice in the National League A with FC Zurich in 1966 and 1968 .

Career

society

At the age of nine, the innkeeper from Ennetbühls started playing football near Ennenda in the youth department of FC Glarus . Six years later, thanks to a special permit, he was able to play in the club's first team, which then rose to the second division (fourth highest class). In 1963, as a 17-year-old, Künzli was in a second league selection, which played the prelude to the European Cup eight-finals between FC Zurich and Galatasaray Istanbul on Zurich's Letzigrund . As early as 1964, Künzli received an offer from the Grasshopper Club Zurich at Gasthaus Sonne , his parents' business ; the club representative was chased away by his father.

President Edi Nägeli signed Künzli a few days later for a small sum of 8,000 francs, and the striker quickly developed into an extremely successful goalscorer. In his second year in Zurich, he won the double with the club in 1966. For the second win of the championship title in 1968, he contributed 28 goals in 26 games. He was the top scorer in the Swiss league three times at FC Zurich in 1967, 1968 and 1970 . He achieved four cup wins in 1966, 1970, 1972 and 1973. During his time at FCZ, he formed an efficient duo with Jakob Kuhn , who designed the game in midfield. When he first won the championship in 1966, Künzli played alongside ex-Hamburg resident Klaus Stürmer . When he won the Cup in 1972, Friedhelm Konietzka provided him with templates. In 1973 he moved to FC Winterthur , with the Winterthur team he reached the League Cup final in 1973 and the Swiss Cup final in 1975. Towards the end of his career he played for Lausanne Sports and secured the top scorer's crown for the fourth time in the 1977/78 season. His personal record of 201 goals in 313 games still exists in the Swiss league today.

In 1978 he came to the United States for a few months , where he received a lucrative offer from the San Diego Sockers in the North American Soccer League , NASL for short, earning the equivalent of 10,000 francs a month, as he himself described it , led princely life. During this time, Künzli opened a small bakery in a Californian mall, mainly selling Glarus pies . In the Sockers, however, he was only used in two league games and scored one goal. In the same year it went to the league competitor Houston Hurricane , a franchise that, like the Sockers, had one of the worst attendance figures in the 24-team league at that time. With the Texans he was used more often with a total of eight championship appearances (two hits), but could not work miracles here either and returned to Lausanne-Sports that same year, where he ended his professional career the following year 1979.

National team

He made his debut in the national team under coach Alfredo Foni on October 17, 1965 at the World Cup qualifier against Holland in Amsterdam. The second and third game he saw at the 1966 World Cup in England against Germany and Argentina. His first goal came in the 2-4 defeat in Romania on November 2, 1966 when playing in the European Championship qualification. When Switzerland managed a 7-1 win over Romania in the European Championship group stage in 1968 on May 24, 1967 in Zurich, he scored two goals like his national team colleague Rolf Blättler . Against the superior group winners Italy, the "Nati" reached a 2-2 draw on November 18, 1967 in Bern in front of 53,137 spectators. In the 69th minute of the game, Künzli had given the Confederates a 2-1 lead with a remarkable diving header. Luigi Riva equalized with a converted penalty in the 84th minute. Like his team- mates Richard Dürr , Karl Odermatt and René-Pierre Quentin , Künzli completed all six group matches in the 1968 European Championship qualification and scored five goals. His departure from the "Nati" he took as a substitute on November 16, 1977 under national coach Roger Vonlanthen in the 1: 4 defeat in Stuttgart against Germany. After 44 internationals with 15 goals, his international appearances were over.

Private

As a child, Künzli came close with his life several times. As a toddler, he fell from the first floor and was caught by a passerby. On February 10, 1961, the then 15-year-old survived a serious avalanche accident in the ski camp on Lenzerheide , in which nine of his schoolmates and the teacher were buried by the masses of snow and died.

After the end of his career, Künzli ran the Ochsen restaurant in Zurich with his Möneli , as he called his long-time partner . Later, the bon vivant worked for Baur au Lac as a wine representative for years.

Fritz Künzli was in a relationship with the singer and actress Monika Kaelin for over 40 years and married her for a few years from 1985. The two remained a couple even after the divorce. In 2010 they got married for the second time. In 2017, Künzli was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia . After several hospital stays and a bilateral groin operation, he came back home at the end of June 2017. In the summer of 2018, the couple moved into a small apartment in Cannes on the Côte d'Azur .

On December 22, 2019, Künzli died a little over two weeks before his 74th birthday in the Hirslanden Clinic in Zurich.

Trivia

The FC Glarus appointed Fritz Künzli virtue of its performance for free member.

literature

• I'll tell you everything - football. Knowledge Media Verlag, Gütersloh, 2005, ISBN 3-577-16405-0
• The big European football book. Nuttelmann, Jade, 1999, ISBN 3-930814-02-1
• Special issue Swiss football 2005/2006. BLICK sports editorial office, Zurich, 2005
• Libero, No. 31/2000, IFFHS, page 74

Web links

• Fritz Künzli. In: dbFCZ. September 29, 2019(statistics for his time at FC Zurich). 
• Fritz Künzli on NASLJerseys.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Football: Legend Fritz Künzli (73) is dead. In: blick.ch . December 22, 2019, accessed December 23, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} As a child, he almost died twice - The crazy life of sonnyboy Fritz Künzli († 73) , accessed on December 26, 2019
3. ↑ "The coffins came on Saturday" , accessed on December 26, 2019
4. ↑ H. Elias Fröhlich: Monika Kaelin and Fritz Künzli: "We have never been happier than today". In: glueckspost.ch . September 24, 2014, accessed December 23, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Bruno Amstutz: Love lasts forever - Part 3: Monika Kälin and Fritz Künzli. (Video, 4:39 minutes) In: SRF broadcast « glanz & gloria ». October 20, 2010, accessed December 23, 2019 .  
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Holidays with Monika Kaelin work wonders - Fritz Künzli finds his language again in Cannes , accessed on December 26, 2019