Josef Bican

Josef Bican
Bican in 1940
Personal information
Full name Josef Bican
Date of birth (1913-09-25)25 September 1913
Place of birth Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Date of death 12 December 2001(2001-12-12) (aged 88)
Place of death Prague, Czech Republic
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)[1]
Position(s) Forward
Youth career
1925–1928 Hertha Vienna [de]
1928–1930 Schustek
1930–1931 Farbenlutz
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1931 Farbenlutz 2 (2)
1931 Rapid Amateur 0 (0)
1931–1935 Rapid Vienna 49 (54)
1935–1937 Admira Vienna 26 (18)
1937–1948 Slavia Prague 219 (416)
1948–1951 FC Vítkovice 58 (74)
1951–1952 FC Hradec Králové[a] 26 (53)
1952–1955 Dynamo Prague 32 (22)
1957 Slovan Liberec 1 (0)
1957 Spartak Brno ZJŠ 4 (2)
Total 417 (641)
International career
1933–1936 Austria 19 (14)
1938–1949 Czechoslovakia 14 (12)
1939 Bohemia and Moravia 1 (3)
Managerial career
1954–1956 Slavia Prague
1956–1959 Slovan Liberec
1957–1958 Spartak Brno ZJŠ
1959–1960 TJ Spartak ZJS Brno
1963–1964 TJ Baník Příbram
1964 FC Hradec Králové
1967–1969 SONP Kladno
1969–1972 KSK Tongeren
1977 Benešov
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Josef "Pepi" Bican (25 September 1913 – 12 December 2001) was an Austrian-Czechoslovakia professional footballer who played as a striker. He is considered by some to be the greatest goalscorer in the history of the sport.[2][3][4] He is considered by RSSSF as the second-most prolific goalscorer in history after Erwin Helmchen, with over 950 goals scored in 624 official matches. He scored 591 goals in 301 official games for Slavia Prague across his 11-year playing career at the club.[5]

Bican began his professional career at Rapid Vienna in 1931. After four years at Rapid, he moved to local rivals Admira Vienna. Bican won four league titles during his time in Austria,[6][7] moved to Slavia Prague in 1937, where he stayed until 1948, and became the club's all-time top goalscorer.[5] He later played for FC Vitkovice, FC Hradec Králové, and Dynamo Praha, retiring in 1955 as the all-time top goalscorer in the Czechoslovak First League with 447 goals.[8] According to UEFA, the governing body for European football, he is the leading all-time goalscorer in European top-flight leagues with 518 goals (447 in Czechoslovakia and 71 in Austria), narrowly ahead of Hungarian Ferenc Puskás.[9]

Bican was a member of the Austrian Wunderteam of the 1930s and represented the nation at the 1934 FIFA World Cup, where they reached the semi-finals. He later switched allegiance to the Czechoslovakia national football team, but a clerical error related to his transfer of national team precluded him from playing in the 1938 FIFA World Cup. Bican was a tall and powerful player,[9] with the technical ability to play with both feet,[10] and had considerable pace. During his athletic prime, he was reportedly capable of running 100 metres in 10.8 seconds, which was not far off the leading sprinters of his time.[4]

After his retirement from playing, Bican became a manager, and coached various teams from the 1950s until the 1970s. In 1998, Bican was given a "Medal of Honour" by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) for being among the world's most successful top division goalscorers of all time.[11] In 2000, the IFFHS awarded Bican the "Golden Ball" in recognition of his status as the greatest goalscorer of the 20th century. The award was based on how many times a player had been top scorer in his domestic league, a feat which Bican achieved 12 times.[6][12]

  1. ^ Strack-Zimmermann, Benjamin. "Josef Bican (Player)". national-football-teams.com. Archived from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  2. ^ "Josef Bican: The Forgotten Man in Football History - But the Greatest Goalscorer of All Time". 90min.com. 4 March 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2024.
  3. ^ Jonathan Wilson (2 February 2021). Sports Illustrated (ed.). "Filling in the Blanks on (Possibly) the Greatest Goalscorer Ever and the Murkiness of His Total". Archived from the original on 2 February 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Welcome to FIFA.com News - The master of marksmen". FIFA. Archived from the original on 25 September 2020. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  5. ^ a b "Prolific Scorers Data - Josef Bican - Additional Data". RSSSF. 6 January 2022. Archived from the original on 11 July 2022. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  6. ^ a b "Josef Bican". 26 December 2001. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  7. ^ "080. Josef Bican". My Football Facts. Archived from the original on 3 October 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  8. ^ Slavia Top Scorers of All Times Archived 4 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine SK Slavia Praha
  9. ^ a b "Meet Europe's most prolific scorer of all time" (in Spanish). UEFA. 4 December 2014. Archived from the original on 13 May 2022. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  10. ^ "Josef Pepi Bican – The Lonely Man at the Top". Goalden Times. 6 June 2017. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  11. ^ "TOP DIVISION GOAL SCORERS OF ALL TIME : FERENC PUSKAS LEADS THE RANKING". International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS). 12 November 2017. Archived from the original on 4 July 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  12. ^ "Josef Bican : world's greatest goalscorer". 3 January 2002. Archived from the original on 25 January 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2020.


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