Career
In 1962, Masopust led the Czechoslovakia team that reached the 1962 FIFA World Cup final, losing to Brazil. He scored in the Final and Czechoslovakia took the lead, Brazil however came back to win 3-1. Because of his performance at the World Cup Finals, he was named European Footballer of the Year in 1962. Overall, he was capped 63 times for his country, scoring ten goals (he also played in the 1958 FIFA World Cup). In Europe, he took Czechoslovakia to third place at the 1960 UEFA European Football Championship.
Masopust's first club was lowly ZSJ Uhlomost Most, but ZSJ Technomat Teplice (renamed to ZSJ Vodotechna Teplice in 1951) signed him as a 19-year-old left-half and gave him his top-flight debut. Then, in 1952, he joined a Czechoslovak Armed Forces football club under name of ATK Praha (renamed to ÚDA Praha in 1953 and to Dukla Prague in Winter 1956). They won eight league championships. When he eventually went abroad in 1968, he helped Crossing Molenbeek win promotion to the Belgian first division as player-coach. His coaching career continued at Dukla, yet his greatest achievement on the bench was winning the Czech league with Zbrojovka Brno in 1978. Later, in 1984-88, he led the Czechoslovakian national football team before a spell in Indonesia where coached her national football junior team in 1988-91.
Read more about this topic: Josef Masopust
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
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