Willy Huber

This article deals with the football goalkeeper Willy Huber. For other people see Wilhelm Huber .

Willy Huber (born December 17, 1913 in Zurich ; † August 1998 in Küsnacht ) was a Swiss football goalkeeper who won four championship titles and seven cup victories with the Grasshopper Club Zurich and with the “red jackets” of the “national team” the Football world Cup 1938 in France took part.

career

societies

Via the stations FC La Sarraz and FC Blue Stars Zurich , the young goalkeeper Willy Huber had made his way to the blue-and-white team from the Hardturm Stadium , to the traditional club GC Zurich. At the age of 19 - on November 19, 1933 - the talent made his debut in the Swiss national football team , at the age of 20 - the final on April 2, 1934 - he won the first Swiss Cup with a 2-0 win with GC against Servette Geneva . The consistent and long-term coaching work of Karl Rappan paid off for the first time with the "Hoppers" from the 1936/37 round through the double success in the championship and the cup. With goalkeeper Willy Huber, Rappan won the Cup in the following years, 1940 to 1943 and further championship titles in 1939, 1942 and 1943. In 26 national league games in 1941/42, the GC defense with "Goali" Huber received only 23 goals. The championship, due to the equality of points in the national league with FC Grenchen , was only decided after two play-offs for GC. In the championship year 1943, the title was won with a goal difference of 91:22 goals in 26 games. After 1937, Huber celebrated the double win in 1941 and 1942. Teammates who helped found this era of success were the GC players Severino Minelli , Max Weiler , Sirio Vernati , Oskar Rohr , André Abegglen , Hermann Springer , Alfred Bickel , Max Abegglen , Lauro Amadò and Hans-Peter Friedländer .

He ended his playing career at local rivals FC Zurich .

National team, 1933 to 1942

The debut of the GC keeper on November 19, 1933 in the "Nati" fell in the era of the outstanding goalkeeper Frank Séchehaye . Huber was credited with an outstanding goalkeeping performance in the 2-0 defeat against Germany in Zurich - with his saves he prevented a German lead in the first 45 minutes - but the position of the then number one in the "Nati" was nothing to change. The young “Hoppers” talent was taken with Renato Bizzozero from FC Lugano as a substitute for the 1934 World Cup in Italy. Both were not used in the World Cup tournament because Frank Sechehaye guarded the Swiss goal in both World Cup games against the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia. After the 1934 World Cup, Sechehaye had to end his career after his 37th international match on November 10, 1935 due to a knee injury, but Willy Huber from GC was not his immediate successor in the "Nati". The goalkeeper colleagues Bizzozero and Gustav Schlegel from Young Boys Bern took turns in the housing of the national team until 1937. When his GC club trainer Karl Rappan also took over the sporting management of the “Red Jackets” with the international match on September 19, 1937 in Vienna against Austria, Willy Huber celebrated his comeback in the national team after a four-year break. Rappan relied on a GC block - Huber, Minelli, W. Weiler, Springer, Vernati, Bickel, Rupf -, three players from Servette Geneva - Lörtscher, Walaschek, G. Aeby - and Paul Aebi from Young Boys Bern. In addition to the formation of blocks, Rappan also introduced the “ Swiss bar ” as a defensive system in the national team. With goalkeeper Huber, the Swiss achieved a 1-1 draw in Cologne on February 6, 1938 in front of 78,000 spectators, despite constant pressure from the German team in the second half with 7-0 corners. Now the GC goalkeeper was number one in goal and since Rappan with Lauro Amado and Andre Abegglen had also added two more offensive forces to the regular line-up alongside Alfred Bickel , Eugène Walaschek and Georges Aeby , participating in the 1938 World Cup in France was realistic Target are controlled.

With a 2-1 win on May 1, 1938 in Milan against Portugal, the "Nati" qualified for the World Cup in France. Huber completed his seventh international match. Fourteen days before the first World Cup game, on May 21st in Zurich, the Confederates achieved another 2-1 victory, an impressive performance. After goals from Georges Aeby and Andre Abegglen, great favorites England were brought to their knees. On June 4, the team around “Goali” Huber fought a 1-1 draw after extra time against Germany in Paris. The Swiss decided the replay on June 9th with 4-2 goals after a 0-2 deficit and "Grossdeutschland" was out of the running. Without the injured Minelli and Aeby, the Rappan-Elf were eliminated three days later, June 12th, against the fresher Hungarians - whose round of 16 match took place on June 5th against the Dutch East Indies - after a 2-0 defeat. In the trade press, six names were named as the best keepers of the tournament: Olivieri (Italy), Planicka (Czechoslovakia), Raftl (Germany), Walter (Brazil), Huber (Switzerland) and Szabo (Hungary). Huber is also credited with having probably formed the strongest back team at this World Cup with his two defenders. Beat Jung explains in his book about the "Nati":

“ After the successes of the Red Jackets against England and 'Grossdeutschland', the system that 'Sport' editor Edwin Kleiner had given the popular name was suddenly on everyone's lips. The “bolt” became for the national team what the “reduit” represented for the army: a mythically inflated symbol of Swiss self-assertion. […] The admiration for the crossbar defense trios of the national team, consisting of the goalkeeper and the two central defenders, who enjoyed an actual heroic status, was correspondingly great. Even after a quarter of a century, 'Sport' wrote about the most popular trio, which had a decisive share in the success against Germany in 1938: 'Huber, Minelli, Lehmann, this triumvirate is still a term today, a synonym for bulwark, force, hardness and brilliant teamwork '(November 27, 1963) "

Since Erwin Ballabio made his debut in the Helvetian national team on February 12, 1939, Willy Huber's career in the national team ended with the game on November 1, 1942 in Budapest against Hungary. From 1933 to 1942 he completed 16 international matches.

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
• BF Hoffmann : The legendary World Cup goalkeepers. A lexicon. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89533-498-7 .
• Robert Franta, Soccer World Cup 1938, AGON Sportverlag, 1995, ISBN 3-928562-21-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thuner Tagblatt , number 192, August 20, 1998, page 17
2. ↑ Beat Jung (Ed.), Die Nati, The Swiss National Football Team, page 78