Ján Popluhár

Ján Popluhár

Popluhár in 1966.
Personal information
Date of birth	(1935-09-12)12 September 1935
Place of birth	Čeklís, Czechoslovakia
Date of death	6 March 2011(2011-03-06) (aged 75)
Place of death	Bernolákovo, Slovakia
Playing position	Sweeper
Youth career
	Slovan Bratislava
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1955–1969	Slovan Bratislava
1955–1958	Rudá Hvězda Brno
1969–1970	Olympique Lyon
1970–1972	Zbrojovka Brno
1972–1979	Slovan Wien
National team
1958–1967	Czechoslovakia	62	(1)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Ján Popluhár (12 September 1935 – 6 March 2011) was a former Slovak football player who played primarily for club ŠK Slovan Bratislava and was also a member of the Czechoslovakia national team, playing in two World Cups (1958 and 1962).

Popluhár started his football career after high school with RH Brno. However, he is best known for the 15 seasons he spent with ŠK Slovan Bratislava where he made 262 competitive appearances in defence, scoring 21 goals, and following further stints with Brno and Zbrojovka Brno finished on 306 Czechoslovak league games and a goalscoring tally of 24. After finishing his career with Slovan in 1968 he moved to French league side Olympique Lyonnais. Two seasons there were enough, but subsequently he spent five years with Austrian amateur club SK Slovan Vienna as player/coach. Many of the thousands of fans in Vienna thought that Popluhár would be shown up by players twenty years younger than he was, but this did not happen. However, at the age of 44 Popluhár realised that his playing career was over.

Slovan Bratislava coach Leopold Šťastný was famous for creating nicknames for his players, and so Popluhár became known in Slovak football circles as 'Bimbo'. "I was called this because I always looked, and indeed was, good-natured, and I would never hurt anybody", recalls Popluhár.

At the 1962 World Cup in Chile, instead of turning the situation to his team's advantage, Popluhár brought the referee's attention to the injured Pelé. In 1997 he was awarded the World Fair Play award for this sporting act. "I met Pelé several times, the first occasion in Chile and then in various international and club games. He was undoubtedly the best, but there were not many one-to-one situations he won and also not many Slovak players who scored in the famous Maracana stadium. I belong to this lucky group after I scored with a free kick against Brazil in June 1966", he remembers.