Walter Horak

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Walter "Max" Horak (born June 1, 1931 ; † December 24, 2019 in Vienna ) was an Austrian national soccer player. The striker took part in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden with the national team and was also twice Austrian champion and top scorer with the Vienna Sports Club .

Career

The winger Walter Horak made his debut at the Wiener Sport-Club in 1953/54 in the A-League . Already in 1954/55 he made the breakthrough with 16 goals this season, was the second best club shooter after Karl Miesser and almost shot his club to the Austrian championship title . In the decisive game against the GAK, Walter Horak took the lead after 5 minutes, but the Grazers finally managed to equalize. For Walter Horak, this season meant joining the national team ; he made his debut on November 14, 1954 against Hungary . For a long time, however, this should remain his only team effort.

After things went less well with the Wiener Sport-Club for two seasons, Walter Horak and his partners Adolf Knoll , Erich Hof , Josef Hamerl and Karl Skerlan managed to remain unbeaten 41 championship games in a row and thus the Austrian championship in 1957 / 58 and 1958/59 . In both seasons the Dornbachers scored at least 100 goals, Walter Horak did the rest as the top scorer in 1958 with 33 goals. The winger was also an issue for the national team and drove to the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, where it was used against Brazil and the Soviet Union .

With the Wiener Sport-Club, Walter Horak was also able to celebrate great successes internationally by making it into the quarter-finals of the European Champions Cup (he was also there in the legendary 7-0 win in the second leg against Juventus in 1958), but the transfer followed at the winter break of 1960 to SC Wacker Vienna . Walter Horak stayed with the Meidlingers for a year, in the winter of 1961 there was another change to the Grazer AK and after only one half-season with Vienna Austria he went back to a larger club. Although he made a good debut at Austria - in his first championship game against Kapfenberger SV he scored 1-0 after just a few seconds - he accepted an offer from the French first division club FC Sochaux after only four rounds and switched to a year Abroad and thus only had a small share in the Austria championship title this season.

For the season 1962/63 returned to Austria, Walter Horak joined the first Schwechat SC to, for which he is now up to the voluntary descent 1966 regularly played a long time. He played his last first division game in the following season at SK Austria Klagenfurt . He died on Christmas Eve 2019 at the age of 88 in Vienna.

Walter Horak was buried in the family grave of the Perchtoldsdorf cemetery.

successes