Search results for ""Author Jo Araf""

Generazione Wunderteam is the enthralling story of the Austrian national football team of the 1930s, an innovative side that dazzled Viennese crowds and sparked a new-found passion for football both at local and international level. Although the Wunderteam was short-lived, this squad led by Hugo Meisl, one of the most prominent figures in European football, proved hugely influential. Vienna quickly became - along with Budapest and Prague - one of the world's football capitals and the birthplace of some of the greatest players of the era, including Matthias Sindelar, a centre-forward whose fame transcended football, and who was often compared to Mozart and other Viennese celebrities. Sindelar died in suspicious circumstances at age 35, after defying the Nazis. The book takes the reader on a journey through that forgotten era, examining the genesis of Hugo Meisl's side, its key figures, the historical vicissitudes of the inter-war years and the most important Viennese teams of the period.

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The Forgotten Cup tells the colourful story of the Mitropa Cup, the inter-war equivalent of today's Champions League. One of the most prestigious football stages of the era - along with the World Cup, which was first played in 1930 - it was a tournament to determine the kings of Europe at the end of a round-robin competition. European football at the highest level was dominated by Italian and Danubian teams - Austrian, Hungarian and Czechoslovakian - and would remain so until the end of the Second World War. The top teams of the time have now fallen into oblivion, and the exploits of Europe's football stars are largely forgotten. Matthias Sindelar, Karel Pešek 'Kád'a, Giuseppe Meazza, György Sárosi and Josef Bican along with a few others were the icons of a sport that had just turned professional, born out of the frictions of a politically heated era with an atmosphere that reverberated on the pitch. The Forgotten Cup takes us back to that lost age.

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