Behind the Words: Matthias Sindelar

Matthias Sindelar (1903-1939) was an Austrian footballer, the best of his generation, perhaps of all time. He was captain of the Wunderteam, and voted both Austrian Footballer of the Century and Austrian Sportsman of the Century.

On 3 April, 1938, Austria played Germany for what was intended to be the final time. After the Anschluss, when Nazi Germany rolled into Austria, the two national teams were combined into a greater German team. Austria were the better team, had already qualified for the World Cup, but the tanks in Vienna said otherwise. The idea was that the game would end with a “diplomatic 0-0 draw.” Sindelar had other plans.

After deliberately missing chance after chance, he seems to have given up pretending, or simply grew exasperated at the feeble opposition, and slotted one away. Sesta scored an emphatic second and the game ended 2-0 to Austria. As Four Four Two then describes it, “The pair danced a jig of delight in front of a box full of Nazi dignitaries.”

The following January, Sindelar and his girlfriend were found dead in his flat, gassed. Some said carbon monoxide poisoning, some said suicide, others said that after months of gestapo harassment, he was murdered. Four Four Two goes into the conspiracy theories in detail here, but whatever the truth of his death, I find the story of his refusal to literally play ball with the Nazi authorities inspiring. Did it make any difference? No. Does that matter? No.

Protesting isn’t a results game. Of course the aim is to drive change, but one forward could not halt the Nazi machine. That doesn’t mean he should have capitulated, continued to shoot the wrong side of the post, and meekly turned up for training with the new German team. You do what you can. You play to the whistle.