Richard Kuthan

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Richard "Rigo" Kuthan (born July 3, 1891 , † February 10, 1958 ) was an Austrian football player and national player of the early 20th century.

Career

Rigo Kuthan came to Rapid Vienna as early as 1906 at the age of 15 and led the young team from Hütteldorf as captain to the first championship title in the club's history in 1911/12 . The trained center forward was the team captain for 15 years and the undisputed emblem of the Rapid-Elf from 1911 to 1925 with one break in the 1916/17 game year.

In his time, Kuthan was one of the most intelligent center forwards in Austria and, due to his disinterested style of play, the ideal complement to bomber Josef Uridil . When Kuthan first saw Uridil when he switched to Rapid in 1915, tradition has it that he made the derogatory remark: "What does the blade want with us?" But soon afterwards he recognized the qualities of the new and revised his mind. Rigo Kuthan opened Uridil with his game in the alley and with his clever knuckles with which he tied the defenders to himself, the space to storm the opponent's goal and thus became his congenial partner on the field.

Richard Kuthan was also a successful goalscorer himself and scored an incredible 167 goals in a total of 246 championship games for Rapid from 1911 to 1929 , although not all goals were counted in the 1911/12 game year. He is still in third place in the eternal club scorers list of the Green-Whites today (2005) behind Robert Dienst (307), Hans Krankl and Franz Binder (each with 267 goals). In 1922 he was the second Rapidler after Uridil, Austria's top scorer with 22 goals . In 1913 and 1914 he was the best club scorer with 14 and 13 goals respectively, and in 1916 he was likely to have achieved the highest number of goals in the championship with 25 goals. The official scoring of the scorers was not introduced until 1921.

With Rapid Wien, the brother-in-law of the long-time section head and trainer Dionys Schönecker and the architect Ing.Eduard Schönecker (builder of Rapid-Platz, Hohe Warte stadium ) won the Austrian championship title eight times and won the Vienna Cup twice . Despite his relationship to Schönecker, he was removed from the team in 1925 and had to give way to a rejuvenation process together with other established players. Kuthan completed the 1926/27 season at SC Wacker Vienna with which he reached eighth place in the championship. After this season things had smoothed out at Rapid and Kuthan was allowed to return to his team.

In 1927 and 1928 Rigo reached the final of the Mitropacup with the Hütteldorfern , but lost with Rapid to AC Sparta Prague (2: 6 and 2: 1) and Fercencvárosi FC (1: 7 and 5: 3). In the 1928/29 season , the now 38-year-old striker won his last championship title with the green-whites and once again made it into the semi-finals of the Mitropacup. There was against the Hungarian team Újpesti FC prematurely terminus. Overall, Kuthan came in the Mitropacup on six missions and scored one goal. After leaving the Mitropa Cup competition, Rigo Kuthan ended his active career in 1929.

His grave is in the Baumgartner Friedhof in Vienna (group 21, number 19).

National team

On December 22, 1912, Rigo Kuthan was called up for the first time in the Austrian national team . In the game against Italy , which was played in Genoa , he contributed the second goal to the 3-1 triumph of the Austrians. Overall, the congenial center forward played in 24 selection games for Austria and scored 14 goals. He played his last international match on May 6, 1928 in Vienna in a 3-0 win over Yugoslavia . An interesting aspect of this international match was the team debut of the later miracle team goalie Rudi Hiden , which also heralded a generation change in Austrian football.

Stations

successes

personal data
SURNAME Kuthan, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kuthan, Rigo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1891
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1958