Sirio Vernati

Sirio Vernati (born May 12, 1907 in Zurich ; † February 22, 1993 ) was a Swiss football player of Italian descent. After his naturalization, he made 34 international matches for the Swiss national football team between 1936 and 1943 .

career

Clubs until 1946

The son of Italian immigrants began playing organized football in his hometown of Zurich in the 1920s at Young Boys Industrie, a boys 'club in the workers' quarter in Zurich 5. Via the junior stations Blue Stars and Juventus Zurigo , he came to FC Zurich in 1930 and saw the introduction of a league (three regional groups, each with eight to eleven teams) with professional players due to the amendment to Article 1 of the competition regulations on July 5, 1930. But already on July 18, 1931, the delegates decided another change: the creation of the National League (NL), consisting of two groups of nine clubs each. But the glory did not last long. The number of spectators rarely exceeded the 4,000 mark, which meant that the clubs were over-indebted. On July 15, 1933, it was decided in Vevey to introduce a year-round, nationwide Swiss competition with the National League at the top.

To introduce the new national league in the 1933/34 round, Vernati switched to the Grasshopper Club and, in the first round of the all-year championship with Servette Geneva, fought an exciting battle for the title over the entire 30 match days. Servette took the title three points ahead of GC and the Geneva striker Leopold Kielholz set a record as top scorer with 40 goals , followed by Vernati's teammate André Abegglen with 33 goals. In the cup competition , Vernati and his teammates Severino Minelli and Oskar Rohr won the final on April 2, 1934 in Bern's Wankdorf Stadium with 2-0 goals against the garnet red championship team of 1933 and 1934, Servette Geneva. In his fourth year at GC, 1936/37, the offensive middle runner and, due to his running strength, tireless starter of the game, won his first Swiss championship . GC relegated the BSC Young Boys , Young Fellows Zurich and FC Luzern to their places. With a 10-0 win in the cup final against Lausanne-Sports , Vernati even celebrated the double on March 29, 1937. The 29-year-old game strategist had successfully applied for the Swiss passport in the 1936/37 series at the urgent request of association president Otto Eicher and, after being naturalized, played his first international match for Switzerland on November 8, 1936. In the game year 1937/38 he reached the runner- up with GC behind the new champions FC Lugano and was able to keep himself harmless with the third cup victory against Servette Geneva. The second title win in the National League he experienced in 1938/39 when the equal points teams from FC Grenchen and FC Lugano ranked in the places. In the seventh year at GC, 1939/40, Servette's dominance was so pronounced that the team around goal scorer Georges Aeby won the championship with 13 points ahead of runner-up Grenchen and even 15 points ahead of the defending champion from Zurich. With his fourth cup success, with a 3-0 win on March 25, 1940 in Bern against the runner-up team around goalkeeper Erwin Ballabio , FC Grenchen, Vernati was also able to end with a success in 1939/40 and remain athletic for twelve months to be in retirement. He retired from the NL game operations and only played in the company team of his employer, FC National Cash Register, in 1940/41.

Sirio Vernati was at the zenith of his ability as one of the best offensive middle runners in Europe. He received an invitation for the game Central against Western Europe on June 20, 1937 in Amsterdam, but had to cancel because of a Mitropa Cup game. The two Italians Serandoni and Andreolo, as well as the Hungarian Lazar, were used in the course of the Central Europe Team. When he was called up for the game of the continental selection on October 26, 1938 in London against England, he spent the encounter with the other substitutes Raftl, Schmaus, Hahnemann and Colaussi but on the bench.

From 1941 to 1946, the veteran was again five rounds in the top Swiss league with the clubs FC Luzern (1941-43) and Young Fellows Zurich on the ball before he ended his activity in his hometown in 1946 at the age of 39.

National team, 1936 to 1943

At the age of 29, Vernati made his debut in the Swiss national football team on November 8, 1936 after his naturalization. Switzerland lost the international match in Zurich with 1: 3 goals against Austria. When he played his eighth game for the "Nati" on September 19, 1937 in Vienna in the 3: 4 defeat against Austria, Eugène Walaschek made his debut and Karl Rappan , Vernati's club coach at GC, was in command of the SFV selection for the first time . Rappan immediately introduced the legendary " Swiss Bar ". The defenders secured each other, the outside runners as outside decks covered the opposing wingers and the middle runners covered the area or played offensively when his team had possession. It was Sirio Vernati's star role. "Nati" coach Rappan usually relied on a player combination of Grasshoppers - Huber, Minelli, Lehmann, Springer, Vernati, plus Lörtscher from Geneva - in defense and the "Servettiens" with Andre Abegglen, Walaschek, G. Aeby, as well as the GC striker Bickel and Amado from Lugano in the attack. The "Nati" set the first exclamation mark on October 31, 1937 with the 2-2 draw in a friendly in Geneva against the reigning football world champions Italy. Already at the international match against Germany on February 6, 1938 in Cologne, Rappan had found his core formation for the goal of participating in the 1938 World Cup in France. Only Fritz Wagner from GC played in the 1-1 draw instead of Andre Abegglen, who played his first international match for Switzerland since 1935 after his return from France and knee surgery since 1935. On May 1, 1938, the Confederates qualified for the 1938 World Cup in France with a 2-1 win against Portugal in Milan. Vernati was also one of the top performers for the Confederates in the sensational 2-1 victory in Zurich on May 21 in the friendly against England. According to contemporaries, the decisive factor in the game was coach Rappan's tactical concept, with which he undermined the British system:

“ The English had mentally adjusted to a game in which they would set the tone, and when Switzerland suddenly began to play their style, when they refused to listen to the well-intentioned intentions of their opponents when they called an unorthodox, in Played a game that was not intended for the football 'cookbooks', which probably did not lack the method, but stayed away from sober schematic, the guests from England simply got out of step. "

The "unorthodox" style of the red jackets consisted of the defensive concept of the "bar" as well as the game with a leaning center forward.

With the 4: 2 success in the replay on June 9 in Paris against Germany in the World Cup tournament, the "Nati" put the whole of Switzerland in a real ecstasy of joy. Vernati and colleagues - Willy Huber ; Severino Minelli , August Lehmann ; Hermann Springer , Ernest Lörtscher ; Lauro Amado , Eugène Walaschek , Alfred Bickel , André Abegglen , Georges Aeby - had prevailed against a favored German team. From November 8, 1936 to June 4, 1939 Vernati completed 28 international matches in a row for Switzerland. With his 35th selection game on May 16, 1943, the 36-year-old ended his career in the "Nati".

literature

• Beat Jung (Ed.): The Nati. The history of the Swiss national football team. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-89533-532-0 .
• Swiss Football League (Philippe Guggisberg), 75 years of the Swiss Football League, 2009, ISBN 978-3-9523556-0-2
• International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), Switzerland (1905–1940), international matches

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Beat Jung (Ed.), Die Nati, The History of the Swiss National Football Team, page 64