Ernst Happel

Ernst Happel
Happel in a commemorative banner
Personal information
Full name Ernst Franz Hermann Happel
Date of birth (1925-11-29)29 November 1925
Place of birth Vienna, Austria
Date of death 14 November 1992(1992-11-14) (aged 66)
Place of death Innsbruck, Austria
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Position(s) Defender
Youth career
1938–1942 Rapid Wien
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1942–1954 Rapid Wien 177 (8)
1955–1956 RC Paris 42 (9)
1956–1959 Rapid Wien 63 (17)
Total 282 (34)
International career
1947–1958 Austria 51 (5)
Managerial career
1962–1969 ADO Den Haag
1967 San Francisco Gales
1969–1973 Feijenoord
1973–1974 Sevilla
1974–1978 Club Brugge
1977–1978 Netherlands
1979 Harelbeke
1979–1981 Standard Liège
1981–1987 Hamburger SV
1987–1991 Swarovski Tirol
1992 Austria
Medal record
Men's football
Representing  Austria (as player)
FIFA World Cup
Bronze medal – third place 1954
Representing  Netherlands (as manager)
FIFA World Cup
Runner-up 1978
*Club domestic league appearances and goals
Team Austria in 1958 with the following players – from left to right, standing; Walter Horak, Ernst Happel, Karl Koller, Alfred Körner, Paul Halla, Walter Schleger; crouched: Helmut Senekowitsch, Gerhard Hanappi, Rudolf Szanwald, Franz Swoboda and Johann Buzek.

Ernst Franz Hermann Happel (29 November 1925 – 14 November 1992) was an Austrian football player and manager.

Happel is regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time,[1][2][3] winning both league and domestic cup titles in the Netherlands, Belgium, West Germany, and Austria. Happel won the European Cup twice, in 1970 with Feyenoord and 1983 with Hamburger SV, managed Club Brugge to a European Cup runner-up finish in 1978, and won a runners-up medal with the Netherlands at the 1978 FIFA World Cup. This is the best result ever for a non-domestic manager in a World Cup alongside Englishman George Raynor's Swedish runner-up campaign in 1958.[4] He was the first of the six managers to have won the European Cup with two clubs (Carlo Ancelotti, Ottmar Hitzfeld, José Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and Jupp Heynckes being the other five). He is also one of six managers–– along with Ancelotti, Mourinho, Giovanni Trapattoni, Tomislav Ivić, and Eric Gerets–– to have won top-flight domestic league championships in at least four countries.

  1. ^ "Ernst Happel – Legendary football manager". The Sporting.blog. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  2. ^ Stephan Uersfeld (6 August 2013). "Greatest Managers, No. 14: Ernst Happel". ESPN. Archived from the original on 30 November 2022. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  3. ^ "Ernst Happel: The 'Weird Man' Who Conquered European Football and Helped Shape the Modern Game". Sports Illustrated. 8 August 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  4. ^ "Nenhuma seleção ganhou uma Copa do Mundo com um técnico estrangeiro" [No team has won a World Cup with a foreign manager]. Goal.com Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). 9 July 2018. Archived from the original on 23 July 2024. Retrieved 23 July 2024.