Football Legend — Matthias Sindelar
The Mozart of Football and his refusal to yield to Nazis
Voted Austra’s best footballer of the 20th Century, there happens to be no explanation as to why The Paper Man’s career is neither celebrated nor remembered in the country.
Given how much Austria tries to publicize its products such as Mozart, Strauss, Haydn, et al., there are no statues of Sindelar. No stadiums or academies bears his name.
Yet Matthias Sindelar was a popular and an influential figure in Europe in the years between the world wars. He was known for his passing ability, speed, ball control, dribbling and creativity. Considered a national treasure, he was an exemplary individual both on and off the field.
Sportswriters dubbed him ‘Die Papierne’ — ‘The Paper Man’ for his mistakenly slender and tall build. He would flutter around the field effortlessly and elegantly, despite the physical requirements of the sport, yet his game showcased the power of mind over matter.
He was the emissary of the romantic café football prevalent in Austria in the 1930s. He was loved by both blue collars and the literati.
Having a sour taste for Nazis, he allegedly danced a jig after scoring against Germany in front of the seated Nazi elites. The act might have cost him his life as he died under mysterious circumstances 10 months later at the tender age of 35 — a subject of interest for conspiracy theories.
So who was this man labelled by many as the Mozart of Football?
Early years
Born to a Czech Catholic family in Kozlov, Moravia, on 10 February 1903, — then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire — Sindelar’s parents moved to the working-class district — with a sizeable Czech presence — of Vienna in 1905.
Club Career
He began playing in the streets of Vienna at an early age. At age 15 he joined Hertha Vienna and played there until 1924. He then moved to FK Austria Wien, a club where he would etch his footballing might and name in the annals of the sport.
He helped his team secure the Austrian league championship in 1926 along with several domestic cup titles in 1925, 1926, 1933, 1935, and 1936.
According to local lore, some Viennese went to Sindelar’s games not only to watch him play but to acquire a better understanding of how football should be played.
International Career
Sindelar was part of the brilliant Austrian national team playing 43 times between 1926 and 1937. Fondly recognized as the Wunderteam, their flexible, passing style was revered all over Europe. They reached their peak in 1932 and were a menacing presence for oppositions throughout the decade.
They were an inspiration to Hungary in the 1950s. It would be the Dutch national team in the 1970s and Spain in the 21st century who would become the apotheoses of their brand of football.
Early in his international career, he had a falling out with Hugo Meisl — the head coach. He wouldn’t be picked for four years: the reason being his individualism.
Now Hugo had transformed the Austrian team into a formidable, disciplined and organised group, but they lacked the creativity to create goal-scoring chances — a crucial aspect Sindelar held.
One day as Meisl sat in a Café in 1931, a group of commentators and journalists cornered him and compelled him to include Sindelar. Meisl relented and changed his mind.
1934 World Cup
The Wunderteam was one of the favourites along with Italy to win the world cup.
One needs to realize that the 1934 edition was reportedly riddled with bribery and corruption. Given its popularity, nations used the sport to mould and manipulate national identities around it. An all-conquering team would be the best tool for autocrats to showcase the rebirth of their country: a case in point being the dictator Benito Mussolini.
The self-appointed Il Duce (supreme ruler) used the tournament as propaganda. Moreover, it is alleged that he picked the referees himself.
And it wasn’t unusual for people to believe those rumours. Refereeing decisions were questionable and skewed towards Italy — the host nation; one of them had even headed the ball to an Italian player in one of the games.
Sindelar and the Austrian team made it to the semifinal but lost to eventual winners Italy with a 1–0 scoreline, a defeat deemed controversial. Nevertheless, they finished fourth, and their influence was prominent.
Anschluss
On 13 March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, jeopardizing the livelihood of those opposed to Nazi ideologies. The new people in power started targeting FK Austria Wien — Sindelar’s club — for their Jewish heritage and connections. This rhetoric was not new as similar Association Football clubs in Germany like FC Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt, FSV Frankfurt, etc. faced the same fate. Most of their members were of Jewish origins.
Nazis would taunt them as Judenklub — a derogatory and antisemitic term. After Anschluss, the club was forced to evict all its Jewish members and change its name to SC Ostmark. Its Jewish president Michl Schwarz like Kurt Landauer (Bayern Munich’s president) had to leave Nazi Germany.
‘The new club president has forbidden us to talk to you, but I will always speak to you, Herr Doktor.’ — Sindelar to Michl Schwarz
Most players of Austria Wien were either killed or fled the country, yet Sindelar stayed. For him, jew, non-jew, blue collars and café dwellers were all equals.
Austria vs Germany
Though it had qualified for the 1938 edition of the World Cup, the Wunderteam was dissolved and merged into the German national team.
Just before its dissolution, on 3 April 1938, the Austrian Wunderteam played Germany in a friendly match.
The game was meant to be a celebration of Austra’s annexation and homecoming. As per Sindelar’s wish, the team wore the colours of the national flag (Austria’s red-white-red) instead of the non-traditional white and black.
The game was atrocious; there were many sitters that Sindelar and Karl Sesta missed. At the final 20 minutes, unable to resist the urge Sindelar scored past the keeper from a rebound and reportedly celebrated rather provocatively. A few minutes later Karl slammed a piledriver from 45 yards out. The crowd went wild. They won the game 2–0.
Retirement from Football
In the following months, Sindelar declined to play for Germany citing old age and bad knees as his reasons, but by that time he was 35 and at the dusk of his career.
As for his post-footballing life, Sindelar seems to have lived a comfortable life in Vienna. He became a Café owner, buying the property from his friend, Jewish owner, at a reasonable price.
He maintained close and public friendships with Austrian Jews, a behaviour considered inappropriate and despicable in Nazi Austria. Such an attitude was contrary to what was happening in Vienna as the city reeled into open thuggery and illegal seizures of Jewish businesses and properties.
In response, the Gestapo — Nazi secret police — kept a file on him; his café was under surveillance, and his movements monitored continuously.
Unresolved Demise
On 23 January 1939, a friend, who was worried he had not seen Sindelar for a while, barged into his apartment and found his lifeless body and an unconscious Camilla Castagnola — his latest lover. She would later die in the hospital. Sindelar was 35, a few days short of his 36th birthday.
The official report stated carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of death. A blocked chimney pipe, a result of poor maintenance, caused the asphyxiation. An accident, yet few believed it.
Some suggested murder at the hands of Nazis as he was apathetic to the state party. After all, most of his customers were Jews. More than 20,000 attended his funeral, a final act of resistance to Nazi rule.
Austrian writer Friedrich Torberg dedicated a poem to Sindelar. His poetry, “Auf den Tod eines Fußballspielers” (“On the death of a footballer”) implied that Sindelar committed suicide as he couldn’t cope with the fate of Austria and subsequently fell into a depression.
According to a life long friend — Egon Ulbrich, to grant him a state funeral a Viennese official was bribed to record his death as an accident.
“According to the Nazi rules, a person who had been murdered or who has committed suicide cannot be given a grave of honor. So we had to do something to ensure that the criminal element involved in his death was removed,” — Egon Ulbrich
Accident, murder or suicide: none of them has been proven to be conclusively true. Even then he is remembered as Austria’s most excellent footballer and the man who defied the Nazis and would not submit to their will.
