Leopold Šťastný

Leopold Šťastný (born May 23, 1911 - May 14, 1996 ) was a Slovak football player and later football coach . He was the first non-Austrian to coach the Austrian national team from 1968 to 1975.

Career

Leopold Šťastný played as a defender at 1. ČsŠK Bratislava , with whom he rose in 1935 in the highest Czechoslovak league, the Státní liga . Until the beginning of the Second World War, he took part in the championship with the club and achieved the best result with fourth place in 1935. In the same year Leopold Šťastný was called up to the Czechoslovak national team : The debut against Austria in the European Cup of the national soccer teams was successful with 2-1.

During the Second World War, which brought Slovakia a temporary independence, Leopold Šťastný played with his club, now ŠK Bratislava , in a Slovak league that could be won in 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1944. In addition, there was a separate Slovak national team , for which Leopold Šťastný ran up against Bulgaria in 1940 .

Then the former defender began his coaching career. Leopold Šťastný was in charge of his parent club, which now bears its current name Slovan Bratislava , as head coach for a total of three periods - from 1949 to 1951, 1954 to 1957 and from 1963 to 1965 . Four Czechoslovak championship titles were recorded at the time before he moved to Austria in 1966, where he led the then still small provincial club FC Wacker Innsbruck to the top of the national league. In recognition of these services, he was appointed national coach as Pesser's successor by the Austrian Football Association on July 1, 1968 .

Leopold Šťastný became the longest serving ÖFB team boss after Hugo Meisl (128) and Herbert Prohaska (51) with a total of 49 international matches on the coaching bench of the Austrian national team. Despite the missed qualification for the 1970 World Cup , his players stuck to him and only failed with a lot of bad luck to qualify for the 1974 World Cup . The Austrian team ended the qualifying round with the same number of points and the same goal difference as Sweden in first place, so that a play-off between these two teams was played in Gelsenkirchen, which went to the Scandinavians 2-1 on snow-covered ground. In the 1974 World Cup, Austria also remained unbeaten.

For health reasons, Leopold Šťastný resigned from the office of national coach on September 24, 1975, as he, as an employee of the football association, had received a positive decision from the public pension insurance institution for early retirement due to invalidity. As a result, the Slovenian coach Branko Elsner , who worked for Wacker Innsbruck, was entrusted with looking after the national team on an interim basis. After retiring as team boss, Stastny worked for the ÖFB for four more years and initiated the Austrian student league , which was held for the first time in 1975/76. At the end of October 1979 he emigrated to Canada (but he returned to Austria a few more times).

His grave is in the Slávičie údolie cemetery in Bratislava , Slovakia .

In 2009 the Stastnyweg in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

ÖFB international matches under team boss Leopold Šťastný

Legend

• H = home game
• A = away game
• * = Play on a neutral place
• - = no official international match
• n / a = after extension
• WM = World Championship
• EM = European Championship
• green background color = victory of Austria
• yellow background color = tie
• red background color = defeat

Games	Victories	draw	Defeats	Gates	TD
48	15th	16	17th	57:59	-2

No.	date	Result	opponent		venue	occasion	comment
353	09/22/1968	0: 1	Switzerland	A.	Bern ( SUI )
354	10/13/1968	0: 2	Germany	H	Vienna	World Cup 1970 qualification
355	06/11/1968	1: 2	Scotland	A.	Glasgow ( SCO )	World Cup 1970 qualification
356	11/10/1968	2: 2	Ireland	A.	Dublin ( IRL )
357	04/19/1969	2: 1	Cyprus	A.	Nicosia ( CYP )	World Cup 1970 qualification
358	04/23/1969	1: 1	Israel	A.	Tel Aviv ( ISR )		First official international match against Israel
359	04/27/1969	3: 1	Malta	A.	Gżira ( MLT )		First official international match against Malta
360	05/10/1969	0: 1	Germany	A.	Nuremberg ( GER )	World Cup 1970 qualification
361	09/21/1969	1: 1	Germany	H	Vienna
362	05/11/1969	2-0	Scotland	H	Vienna	World Cup 1970 qualification	Austria does not qualify as third party again
363	04/08/1970	1: 1	Yugoslavia	A.	Sarajevo ( YUG )
364	04/12/1970	1: 3	Czechoslovakia	H	Vienna
365	04/29/1970	0: 1	Brazil	A.	Rio de Janeiro ( BRA )		First international match in South America
366	09/10/1970	0: 1	Yugoslavia	H	Graz		First international match in Graz
367	09/27/1970	1: 1	Hungary	A.	Budapest ( HUN )
368	07.10.1970	1-0	France	H	Vienna
369	10/31/1970	1: 2	Italy	H	Vienna	European Championship 1972 qualification
370	04/04/1971	0: 2	Hungary	H	Vienna
371	05/26/1971	0: 1	Sweden	A.	Stockholm ( SWE )	European Championship 1972 qualification
372	05/30/1971	4: 1	Ireland	A.	Dublin ( IRL )	European Championship 1972 qualification
373	07/11/1971	1: 1	Brazil	A.	Sao Paulo ( BRA )		With 130,000 fans at the Estádio do Morumbi record number of spectators for an away game
374	04.09.1971	1-0	Sweden	H	Vienna	European Championship 1972 qualification	100th international match in the Prater Stadium
375	10/10/1971	6-0	Ireland	H	Linz	European Championship 1972 qualification
376	11/20/1971	2: 2	Italy	A.	Rome ( ITA )	European Championship 1972 qualification	Austria is second in the group and thus fails in the qualification
-	02/20/1972	3: 3	Tunisia	A.	Tunis ( TUN )		First international match against Tunisia, not an official international match
377	04/08/1972	0: 2	Czechoslovakia	A.	Brno ( TCH )
378	04/30/1972	4-0	Malta	H	Vienna	1974 World Cup qualification
379	06/10/1972	2-0	Sweden	H	Vienna	1974 World Cup qualification
380	09/03/1972	1: 1	Romania	A.	Craiova ( ROU )
381	October 15, 1972	2: 2	Hungary	H	Vienna	1974 World Cup qualification
382	11/25/1972	2-0	Malta	A.	Gżira ( MLT )	1974 World Cup qualification
383	03/28/1973	1-0	Netherlands	H	Vienna
384	04/29/1973	2: 2	Hungary	A.	Budapest ( HUN )	1974 World Cup qualification
385	May 23, 1973	2: 3	Sweden	A.	Gothenburg ( SWE )	1974 World Cup qualification	Austria lands in 1st place with Sweden ex-aequo
386	06/13/1973	1: 1	Brazil	H	Vienna
387	09/26/1973	0: 7	England	A.	London ( ENG )
388	10/10/1973	0: 4	Germany	A.	Hanover ( GER )
389	11/27/1973	1: 2	Sweden	*	Gelsenkirchen ( GER )	1974 World Cup qualification	Decision game for participation in the World Cup
390	03/27/1974	1: 1	Netherlands	A.	Rotterdam ( NED )
391	05/01/1974	0-0	Brazil	A.	Sao Paulo ( BRA )
392	06/08/1974	0-0	Italy	H	Vienna
393	04.09.1974	2: 1	Wales	H	Vienna	EM 1976 qualification
394	09/28/1974	1-0	Hungary	H	Vienna
395	11/13/1974	1-0	Turkey	A.	Istanbul ( TUR )
396	March 16, 1975	2: 1	Luxembourg	A.	Luxembourg ( LUX )	EM 1976 qualification
397	04/02/1975	0-0	Hungary	H	Vienna	EM 1976 qualification
398	06/07/1975	0-0	Czechoslovakia	H	Vienna
399	09/03/1975	0: 2	Germany	H	Vienna
400	09/24/1975	1: 2	Hungary	A.	Budapest ( HUN )	EM 1976 qualification

Web links

• Portrait at slovanfutbal.com (Slovak)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Box at the bottom right: "Stastny to Canada" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna November 1st 1979, p. 13 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).