Josef Bican
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Josef Bican | ||
| Date of birth | 25 September 1913 | ||
| Place of birth | Vienna, Austria-Hungary | ||
| Date of death | 12 December 2001 (aged 88) | ||
| Place of death | Prague, Czech Republic | ||
| Playing position | Striker | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1925–1927 | Hertha Vienna II | ||
| 1927–1928 | Schustek | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1928–1930 | Schustek | 23 | (24) |
| 1930–1931 | Farbenlutz | 20 | (47) |
| 1931–1935 | Rapid Vienna | 49 | (52) |
| 1935–1937 | Admira | 26 | (18) |
| 1937–1948 | Slavia Prague | 217 | (395) |
| 1950–1951 | FC Vítkovice | 33 | (30) |
| 1952 | FC Hradec Králové | 9 | (19) |
| 1953–1955 | Dynamo Prague | 29 | (22) |
| Total | 406 | (607) | |
| National team | |||
| 1933–1936 | Austria | 19 | (14) |
| 1938–1949 | Czechoslovakia | 14 | (12) |
| 1939 | Bohemia and Moravia | 1 | (3) |
| Teams managed | |||
| 1954–1956 | Slavia Prague | ||
| 1956–1959 | TJ Slovan Liberec | ||
| 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 | ||
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* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. |
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* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
Josef "Pepi" Bican (25 September 1913 – 12 December 2001) was a Czech-Austrian football striker. It is estimated by footballing statistics page Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) that Bican scored about 800 goals in all competitive matches, not including friendly games. This would make him the most prolific scorer of football history, however, this is not officially proven, since the numbers of his goals and matches are based on theories.
He was a member of the Austrian Wunderteam of the 1930s and was the season's highest scorer in the whole of Europe on five separate occasions. Bican had the ability to play with both feet; he also had considerable pace and was able to run 100 metres in 10.8 seconds, which was as fast as many sprinters of the time. The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) awarded Bican the "Golden Ball" as the greatest goalscorer of the last century.
Bican was born in Vienna to František and Ludmila Bican. He was the second of three children. František was from Sedlice in Southern Bohemia, and Ludmila was Viennese Czech. Josef's father František was a footballer who played for Hertha Vienna. He fought in World War I and returned uninjured. However, František was to die at the age of just 30 during 1921 because he refused an operation to treat a kidney injury sustained in a football match. His mother worked in a restaurant kitchen. The family's poverty meant that Bican had to play football without shoes, which helped him improve his ball control skills. Bican attended the Jan Amos Komenský school, a Czech school in Vienna. Four years after his father's death in 1925, twelve-year-old Bican started to play for the Hertha Vienna junior team, Hertha Vienna II. When he was 18, Bican was spotted by Rapid Vienna, who were a big club in the city at the time.
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