Josef Humpál

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Josef "Pepi" Humpál (born January 30, 1918 in Olomouc ; † December 20, 1984 in Neuchâtel ) was a Czechoslovak football player and coach who was under contract with French and Swiss clubs for a significant part of his career .

The player

The goal- scoring striker , who also scored many goals from resting balls, played for SK Baťa Zlín from 1938 to 1946 . For this Moravian club he played in seven seasons - the 1944/45 season was canceled due to the war - a total of 140 first division matches and is the player with the most appearances in the upper house of football in Czechoslovakia. In the 1945/46 season he won the unofficial runner-up behind Sparta Prague with Zlín .

In 1946 Baťa Zlín undertook a total of three tours to France, with the team winning 15 of 16 games, including defeating Olympique Marseille. In addition to Humpál, Ludvík Dupal and in 1947 Antonín Tichý also moved to FC Sochaux .

Humpál found his way in professional football there straight away and played a key role in the fact that his first employer won the division 2 championship in the summer of 1947 and rose to the top division . He played 41 of the 42 league games and scored an astonishing 45 of the 141 goals of the " Peugeot -Werkself". In the following first division years, "Pépi", as the man with the high forehead was soon affectionately known by the fans, fulfilled expectations; He benefited from the fact that he had a strike partner in the club legend Roger Courtois, who was nine years his senior , with whom he got along very well and who was himself both a dangerous goalie and a good template provider. In the 1947/48 season, Sochaux finished ninth as a climber, Humpál scored 20 goals and made it to fifth place on the top scorer list. In addition, the team fought their way to the quarter-finals in the cup , in which, however, FC Nancy proved to be stronger. In the following year, FC even achieved fifth place in Division 1 , and Josef Humpál became the French top scorer with his 26 goals together with LOSC goalkeeper Jean Baratte . In the following two seasons (1949-1951) the Sochaliéns and with them their storm duo slackened somewhat, but in 1950 they once again reached the cup quarter-finals and both times secure midfield placements in the league.

For the 1951/52 season, the second division SO Montpellier lured the Czech as a player-coach in the south of France. He was also successful in this new double function: his team finished second, was promoted to the top division and "Pépi" let the bell ring 21 times in the opposing box. Nevertheless, he left the Languedoc at the end of the season and returned to the north-east of the country to help Racing Strasbourg there as well with 16 hits when returning to Division 1 . As a result, the Alsatians made him their player-coach for the next two years and he was as successful on the sidelines as before on the pitch: 1953/54 place 6, 1954/55 even place 4 and additionally a successful cup course (among other things with wins over FC Sochaux and FC Nancy), which only ended in the semi-finals at the eventual cup winner Lille OSC. Humpál has positioned himself in twelve first division games in these two years and at the age of 37 was able to beat the opposing goalkeeper one last time at this level.

From 1955 he trained a team from the south of France with AS Béziers , where he also set up ten times in Division 2 until 1957 , where he also scored one more goal and was promoted in 1957. Overall, Josef Humpal only won the title of top scorer as a player in France in 1949, but he scored 67 goals in 131 Division 1 games and 83 goals in 116 Division 2 games - the lion's share of them between 1946 and 1953 - which was one results in a very excellent hit quotient. He has also been promoted from the second to the first division four times.

Stations

  • SK Baťa Zlín (1938-1946)
  • Football Club de Sochaux-Montbéliard (1946–1951, including 1946/47 in D2)
  • Stade Olympique Montpelliérain (1951/52, in D2)
  • Racing Club de Strasbourg (1952–1955, including 1952/53 in D2)
  • Association Sportive Biterroise (1955–1957, in D2)

The trainer

The data available on Josef Humpál's subsequent years as a trainer, as well as other biographical information, is much thinner and incomplete. After the above-mentioned first division promotion with AS Béziers, he became head coach there in 1957; the prompt relegation led to his return to Racing Strasbourg, with whom he reached 11th place in Division 1 in 1959 and 18th place in 1960, which meant relegation. He then moved to Switzerland , where he was based in Neuchâtel - just 70 km from Sochaux - for at least the next ten years ; His later stations in Yverdon and Friborg are also in this western part of Switzerland.

He coached FC Cantonal Neuchâtel (1961-1965), Neuchâtel Xamax (1965-1969), then again Cantonal Neuchâtel (1969/70, the last year before its merger with Xamax). His greatest success in these years: to be promoted twice in a row with Cantonal, in 1962 in National League B and 1963 in National League A  - from which his club had to relegate after only one season. He also led local rivals Xamax in 1966 to the second highest division, but Humpál did not succeed in advancing to the upper house in the following years.
After 1970, the information became even more sparse and was reduced to two further stations: in the 1973/74 season he was in charge of the Yverdon-Sport FC league eleven and in 1982/83 he achieved a midfield position with FC Friborg in the National League B.

It is not known whether or where he was active over the intervening years. Shortly before Christmas 1984 “Pépi” Humpál died in Neuchâtel.

Club ligových kanonýrů

On July 30, 2019, Humpál was accepted into the ligových kanonýrů club after having managed to statistically prove his top division goals for SK Baťa Zlín (69), FC Sochaux (66) and Racing Strasbourg (one goal).

Literature / sources

  • Marc Barreaud: Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du championnat professionnel français (1932-1997). L'Harmattan, Paris 1998 ISBN 2-7384-6608-7
  • Hubert Beaudet: Le Championnat et ses champions. 70 ans de Football en France. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2002 ISBN 2-84253-762-9
  • Stéphane Boisson / Raoul Vian: Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot Saint-Thibault o.J.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ At the time of his birth there was still no Czechoslovak nation state; since he was born in Moravia , he was a citizen of Austria-Hungary .
  2. ↑ History FC Fastva Zlín fcfastavzlin.cz, undated, in Czech. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  3. ↑ Nový člen Josef Humpál: známější ve Francii než doma časopis Gól No. 31/2019 of July 30, 2019, in Czech.
  4. ↑ Zlínský fotbal provázejí vzestupy i tvrdé pády zlinsky.denik.cz of November 12, 2009, in Czech. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  5. ↑ Nový člen Klubu kanonýrů Josef Humpál - známější ve Francii než doma fotbal.cz from July 30, 2019, in Czech. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Humpál, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Humpál, Pepi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Olomouc , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1984
Place of death Neuchâtel , Switzerland