Jiří Sobotka
Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 6 June 1911 | ||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Prague, Austria-Hungary | ||||||||||||||||
Date of death | 20 May 1994 | (aged 82)||||||||||||||||
Place of death | Intragna, Switzerland | ||||||||||||||||
Position(s) | Forward | ||||||||||||||||
Youth career | |||||||||||||||||
Čechoslovan Košíře | |||||||||||||||||
Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
1931–1939 | Slavia Prague | ||||||||||||||||
1939–1941 | Hajduk Split | 34 | (17) | ||||||||||||||
1942 | Slavia Prague | ||||||||||||||||
1943–1946 | SK Baťa Zlín | ||||||||||||||||
1946–1951 | Chaux-de-Fonds | ||||||||||||||||
International career | |||||||||||||||||
1934–1937 | Czechoslovakia | 23 | (8) | ||||||||||||||
Managerial career | |||||||||||||||||
1940–1941 | Hajduk Split | ||||||||||||||||
1946–1959 | Chaux-de-Fonds | ||||||||||||||||
1959–1961 | Feyenoord | ||||||||||||||||
1961–1965 | FC Basel | ||||||||||||||||
1964–1965 | Switzerland | ||||||||||||||||
1965–1967 | FC Biel-Bienne | ||||||||||||||||
1968–1969 | Charleroi | ||||||||||||||||
1970–1971 | UE Sant Andreu | ||||||||||||||||
1971–1972 | Chaux-de-Fonds | ||||||||||||||||
1972–1973 | FC Aarau | ||||||||||||||||
1973–1976 | Bellinzona | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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*Club domestic league appearances and goals |
Jiří Sobotka (also known as Georges Sobotka; 6 June 1911 – 20 May 1994) was a Czech football player and manager. He played internationally for Czechoslovakia.
Career
[edit]Sobotka played for Czechoslovakia national football team (23 caps, 8 goals)[1] and participated at the 1934 FIFA World Cup when Czechoslovakia came in second.
He played for Slavia Prague, Hajduk Split (winning the Banovina of Croatia first league[2]) and FC La Chaux-de-Fonds.
During his period in Split, he played 36 league matches scoring 17 goals in the 1939-40[3] and 1940-41[4] seasons. Before arriving to Yugoslavia, he had been a player-coach in Switzerland with FC Winterthur.[5]
After his playing career, he coached numerous clubs in Switzerland[6] and won 6 Swiss cups.[7] He also coached Charleroi in Belgium[8] UE Sant Andreu in Spain,[9] and Switzerland national team.[10]
Curiosity
[edit]A well-documented curiosity was that during the winter break of their 1963–64 season FC Basel travelled on a world tour. This saw them visit British Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Mexico and the United States. As first team manager Sobotka was together with 16 players and 15 members of staff, supporters and journalists participated in this world tour from 10 January to 10 February 1964. Team captain Bruno Michaud filmed the events with his super-8 camara. The voyage around the world included 19 flights and numerous bus and train journeys. Club chairman, Lucien Schmidlin, led the group, but as they arrived in the hotel in Bangkok, he realised that 250,000 Swiss Francs were missing. The suitcase that he had filled with the various currencies was not with them. He had left it at home, but fortunately Swiss Air were able to deliver this to him within just a few days. During the tour a total of ten friendly/test games were played, these are listed in their 1963–64 season. Five wins, three draws, two defeats, but also three major injuries resulted from these test matches. A broken leg for Peter Füri, an eye injury for Walter Baumann and a knee injury for Bruno Michaud soon reduced the number of players to just 13.[11]
Honours
[edit]As a player
[edit]Slavia Prague
Hajduk Split
Czechoslovakia
- FIFA World Cup runner-up: 1934
As a manager
[edit]Chaux-de-Fonds
- Swiss Championship: 1953–54, 1954–55
- Swiss Cup: 1947–48, 1950–51,[a] 1953–54, 1954–55, 1956–57
Feyenoord
FC Basel
- Swiss Cup: 1962–63
- ^ Sobotka won the 1947–48 and 1950–51 Swiss Cups as a player-manager
References
[edit]- ^ Jiri Sobotka - International Appearances
- ^ Croatia - Championship Winning Squads
- ^ 1939-40 league stats at Hajduk Split official website.(in Croatian)
- ^ 1940-41 league stats at Hajduk Split official website.(in Croatian)
- ^ All-time coaches Archived 11 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine at FC Winterthur official website, retrieved 24-11-2015
- ^ Switzerland - Trainers of First and Second Division Clubs Archived 27 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Coupe Suisse
- ^ DH.be - Le Sporting centenaire!
- ^ Edición del viernes, 26 junio 1970, página 9 - Hemeroteca - elmundodeportivo.es
- ^ Switzerland - International Matches
- ^ Zindel, Josef (2018), "Die ersten 125 Jahre: 1964", The unbelievable world tour, Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, pp. 60–61
External links
[edit]- Jiří Sobotka at FAČR (in Czech)
- Jiří Sobotka at WorldFootball.net
- Career story at Hajduk Split official website. (in Croatian)
- 1911 births
- 1994 deaths
- Czechoslovak men's footballers
- Czechoslovakia men's international footballers
- Czech men's footballers
- SK Slavia Prague players
- FC Zlín players
- HNK Hajduk Split players
- FC Aarau managers
- 1934 FIFA World Cup players
- Czechoslovak football managers
- Czech football managers
- FC La Chaux-de-Fonds managers
- Feyenoord managers
- FC Basel managers
- HNK Hajduk Split managers
- AC Bellinzona managers
- UE Sant Andreu managers
- FC Biel-Bienne managers
- Royal Charleroi S.C. managers
- Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland
- Expatriate football managers in Yugoslavia
- Expatriate men's footballers in Yugoslavia
- Yugoslav First League players
- Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in Yugoslavia
- Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in Italy
- Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in Spain
- Footballers from Prague
- Eredivisie managers
- Expatriate football managers in Belgium
- Expatriate football managers in the Netherlands
- Expatriate football managers in Spain
- Expatriate football managers in Switzerland
- Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands
- Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in Belgium
- Czechoslovak expatriate men's footballers
- Men's association football forwards
- Czech expatriate football managers
- People from the Kingdom of Bohemia