Josef Epp

Josef Epp (born March 1, 1920 ; † March 1989 ) was an Austrian soccer player and soccer coach who was part of the national team in the 1940s .

Club career

At the beginning of his sporting career, Epp was also active as a track and field athlete at the Vienna Cricket and Football Club before he decided to play football, where he moved from the second division SC Metallum Vienna to the Vienna Sport Club in the top division in early 1937 . With the Dornbachers he was able to win a starting place as a center forward straight away and already scored four goals against the Hakoah in one of his first championship appearances . In his first full season in the top division he was runner- up with the Sport-Club in 1937/38 and with 15 goals was also able to take second place in the scorers' list behind Franz Binder . Furthermore, the black and whites reached the final of the ÖFB Cup for the second time in a row , where, however - as in 1937 against Vienna - they lost the field against SC Schwarz-Rot Wien .

Even after the Anschluss , Epp was still one of the most successful strikers in the league and was third on the top scorer list twice in a row in 1939 and 1940, the sports club achieved third place in 1940 with a team led by Epp, Rudolf Geiter , Karl Graf and Max Merkel the championship, after which the team slipped into mediocrity. At the end of the war, Epp was in Upper Austria, where he initially played for SV Libertas Bad Hall before he returned to the sports club in early 1946 and scored five goals against SC Rapid Oberlaa in his first championship game. In the spring of 1946, Epp was the subject of a controversy over the daily newspapers about his status as a National Socialist possibly subject to registration under the Prohibition Act. The player had already worked for the National Socialist high school students before the Anschluss and in 1938 he became a functionary of the Hitler Youth . The player was temporarily banned several times in February and March 1946, before the Vienna Football Association determined that Epp was not subject to registration and was therefore eligible to play.

In the following years, the center forward was again regularly the most successful goalscorer of his club and in 1949 was again in second place on the list of goalscorers behind Erich Habitzl , but the club only placed in the midfield. At the end of 1950, Epp left the Dornbacher and joined the state league promoted Linzer ASK , where he was also to be followed by his club colleague Ferdinand Zechmeister . After a year, however, Epp returned to Vienna, where he ran two more seasons for Vienna.

In 1953 he accepted an offer from the Swiss first division club Servette Geneva , where he played for two years under the coach Karl Rappan . After his return, he took over the role of player coach at SV nitrogen Linz , which he led first to the Upper Austrian championship title and then in the relegation against SV Mattersburg in the second-class State League B. After losing relegation in the first second division season, Epp accepted an offer from LASK, which had meanwhile slipped into second division, and achieved the championship title with the athletes in his last season as an active player in 1958 and thus promotion to the top division.

With 195 championship goals, Epp is still one of the 15 most successful goal scorers in the top Austrian league.

National team

Epp received his first call-up to a national team in August 1937, when he won with the amateur national team against Hungary 6-3 and scored a goal. After the connection, Epp was used several times in the Vienna city team, his first game for the Austrian national team followed against Hungary in a 3-2 in Vienna in April 1946. By 1948 the center forward played eight international matches, with two goals each against Hungary and Switzerland get in a game. Epp was also part of the squad of the national team that took part in the 1948 Olympic Games in London, where he was used in the only game, a round of 16 defeat against Sweden . The last time he played in October 1948 for Austria, the opponent was again Hungary.

Coaching career

After Epp had made it to the State League A with LASK in 1958, he took over the coaching position and was initially able to secure relegation with the Linzers, before joining the club in the 1959/60 season after signing Gerhard Sturmberger , Heribert Trubrig and Rudolf Sabetzer led to a secured midfield position.

Stations

• until 1937: SC Metallum Vienna
• 1937 to 1950: Wiener Sport-Club
• 1950 to 1951: Linz ASK
• 1951 to 1953: First Vienna FC
• 1953 to 1955: Servette Genève
• 1955 to 1957: SV nitrogen Linz (player trainer)
• 1957 to 1958: Linzer ASK
• 1958 to 1960: Linzer ASK (trainer)

successes

• 1 × Austrian runner-up: 1938
• 2 × ÖFB Cup finals: 1937, 1938
• 2 × second and 2 × third on the list of goalscorers: 1938, 1949 and 1939, 1940
• 1 × Austrian second division champion: 1958
• 1 × Upper Austrian regional champion: 1956
• 8 games and 5 goals for the Austrian national soccer team: 1946–1948