Who was Josef Bican?

The name of Josef Bican has once again taken over sports news thanks to the aim and voracity of Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese star, with his goal against Sassuolo, equaled the Austro-Czech legend with 759 official goals in his career. The Juventus man will not take long to surpass him. Although, if you want to completely clear up the doubts, your goal is the 805 goals that FIFA recognizes for Bican, since there are disparities in criteria regarding his final scoring figure. What's more, the protagonist himself affirms that there were many more …

“In my entire career, I did score 5,000 goals. I understand that Pele, counting the training sessions, 1,500. And that World War II stole seven good years from me, when I was in my best shape. How many goals would he have scored in these seven years? Well, surely a respectable figure “, Bican said in statements collected by Josef Pondelik in his book 'Bican pet Tisíc gólu' ('Bican, 5000 goals'). But who is hiding behind so much goal?

Josef Bican was born in Vienna, on September 25, 1913, his family came from Prague and lived closely through the two great wars. His father enlisted for World War I, while the Second, with himself recalls, got in the way of his own career. The forward's story is worthy of a serial for any of the multiple platforms of streaming current. He grew up in an immigrant neighborhood surrounded by poverty. Moreover, according to various accounts, not a few times he had to play barefoot because his family did not have the financial means to buy him the right footwear.

Neighbor of 'The Mozart of football'

'Pepi', as he was known, would soon show his scoring potential in his native Vienna and in 1931, At age 17, he broke into Rapid's first team with a hat-trick that showed he was reaching pro to stay. In his early years he shared a team with some of the most important Austrian players in history such as Weselik, Kaburek and Binder. The “inner storm” they called them. And they, together with Matthias Sindelar, made up one of the best teams in football history, the Wunderteam.

Austria, at that time, was a world soccer power thanks to all our protagonists and Bican and Sindelar, curiously neighbors in their childhood, were the leaders of a team that appeared in the 1934 World Cup as the big favorite. In the tournament, only the host, Italy, not without controversy, was able to draw them out of the grand final. Sindelar, known as the 'Mozart of football' or 'The paper dancer', was the star of the team and he is still regarded as the best Austrian player in history. That would be the only World Cup that Bican and Sindelar would play together and that is, perhaps, the reason why history has turned its back on Josef.

Fight against Nazism

And that was the only great tournament that 'Pepi' played, since refused to defend the colors of Germany after Anchluss (merger of Austria and Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938). Like Bican, Sindelar made the same decision, both refused multiple times the German invitations to join their national team until, In 1939, the 'Mozart of football' died in his own home from alleged CO2 poisoning. Death was a symbol in the fight against Nazism, something that our protagonist would also champion, as the historian Román Horak recalled in a tribute speech to the five years after his death: “Horak recalled that Bican was bilingual, he had been raised between two cultures, Austrian and Czechoslovak, and did not share the Nazi philosophy “, recapitulates 'Infobae'.

It was precisely in Prague that the bulk of his prolific scoring career took place. ANDBetween 1939 and 1944 it would be Golden Boot with Slavia, although at that time there was no award that made the achievement a milestone. 534 goals in 271 Matches are a sufficient sample of the offensive arsenal he treasured. But Bican was, in addition to being precise in his shots, lightning fast: it is said that ran the 100-meter dash in 10.8 seconds when Jesse Owens' record at the time was 10.3.

Away from the elite, being part of it

In 1939 he achieved a milestone that greatly stung Germany. Bican, representing Bohemia and Moravia (name Czechoslovakia received during the German invasion), achieved a hat-trick against the Germans in a match that would end 4-4. Already with Czechoslovakia he would play 47 games, in which he would score 46 goals, thus completing games with three different teams (Austria, Bohemia and Moravia and Czechoslovakia).

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Although the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFH) awarded him in January 2001 with the trophy for the top scorer in the First Division (581 goals) of all time, the 759, or 805, goals in 495, or 530, matches that are officially counted for him (the number of friendlies would have reached 1,468 points), curiously, they do not place him in the conversations among the best players in history. What's more, other great gunners like Ferenc Puskas, who finished with 709 points in his career, have much higher regard than Bican. The fact that he only played one major tournament, the 1934 World Cup, and that the European Cup, the current measuring stick, was born in 1956, two years after his retirement, play against him. But no one can deny him his place in history whether he scored 759, 805 or 5,000 goals …