Ernst Franz Hermann Happel was one of the greatest football managers of all time. Not only in terms of trophies won, his influence tactically can still be felt in football today.
He was the first manager to win the European Cup with two different clubs. To date, he is the only manager to lead a club side to the European Cup final and a national side to the World Cup final in the same year.
As a tactician, he was a bona fide pioneer and visionary, opting for numerical midfield superiority over opponents by operating with a third midfielder in an era when the 4-2-4 formation was the norm.
Happel’s contribution to football is far reaching and incredible, yet in the English-speaking world his story is somewhat unheralded when set against many of his contemporaries.
Happel was born in Vienna on the 29th November 1925. By the age of 12 his budding football talent had seen him join local club Rapid Vienna.
Football during this period in Austria was at its Zenith. It had been professional since 1924 and the national side – The Wunderteam – enjoyed their most successful spell, led by legendary manager Hugo Meisl.
Meisl, like Happel, was an ideologue and a visionary. His passion for the sport and his thirst to see it used as an international force for good saw him push hard for cross border, international tournaments.
Both the International Cup and the Mitropa Cup were his brainchild. These competitions were the forerunners to the modern day European Championships and Champions League. Both helped to foster a sense of understanding and international cooperation only nine years on from the brutality of the first world war.
Tragically, Hugo Meisl died of a heart attack aged 55 in 1937. Just over a year on from his passing, all his good work would be undone. Austria, as an independent, sovereign nation were wiped off the map.
Over the border in neighbouring Germany, Adolf Hitler had been in power for five years and on March 12th 1938 initiated ‘The Anschluss’ – the annexation of his homeland, Austria.
Without any real voice in the matter, Austria was incorporated into the Third Reich and renamed Ostmark. Hitler gave a speech on March 15th from the balcony of the Habsburg Palace to a huge crowd, marking the move official. Within hours, persecution of the Jewish population and anyone deemed an opponent of the Nazi’s was under way.
In sport, the clock was turned back more than a decade and football returned to amateur status. Austrian club sides were withdrawn from the Mitropa Cup and the International Cup was suspended. Hugo Meisl’s entire life’s work was destroyed by the Nazi’s in a mere three days.
For the young Ernst Happel and his sporting peers, this meant their team had to be incorporated into the Hitler Youth. As a non-conformist, Happel treaded a dangerously thin line by refusing to participate in the singing of party songs – an act of rebellion for which he was extremely fortunate led only to social ostracization.
Aged 17, he made his debut for Rapid Vienna before his fledgling career was put on hold as he was conscripted by the Wehrmacht and sent to the dreaded Eastern Front. Many decades later, he would attest that he was incredibly fortunate not to be involved in any actual combat, before being captured by the Americans and finding himself back in Vienna at the war’s end in 1945.
Post war, Happel’s playing career really took off and he would go on to make 177 appearances for Rapid Vienna over the next nine years. The 1954 World Cup in Switzerland saw him feature for his national side on the greatest stage of all, but events surrounding Austria’s 6-1 semi-final loss to West Germany would pave the way for Happel’s departure from Rapid Vienna.
In the furore that followed the catastrophic performance in Basel, the Austrian press were eager to find someone to point the finger of blame at. Happel and goalkeeper Walter Zeman were without foundation, accused of match fixing.
Incensed and hurt by the baseless and bitter accusations, he packed his bags that Summer, swapping Vienna – the city of dreams, for Paris – the city of love.
Happel joined Racing Club De Paris but his stay in France would be a fleeting one – lasting only two years. Strangely, for someone who’s managerial career would eventually take him far from home, homesickness set in and he returned to Vienna, re-signing for Rapid in 1956.
The coffee house culture of Vienna was Happel’s natural habitat and something he longed for when in Paris. In establishments such as his treasured Café Ritter, this taciturn, anomalous, footballing automaton, fuelled by caffeine, cognac and cigarettes would shape his football philosophy.
From 1956 to 1959 Happel clocked up a further 63 appearances for Rapid scoring 17 goals – three of which were a hat-trick scored against Real Madrid in the European Cup. Along the way he would also earn an Austrian Bundesliga winners medal in 1957 to add to the five others he won in his previous spell with the club.
Internationally, Austria qualified for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden but fell flat at the first hurdle. They finished bottom of a group containing Brazil, England and the Soviet Union. Happel featured in the opening match against Brazil and the last match against England.
His final appearance as a player before hanging up his boots was for Rapid, away to Wiener Sport-Club on Sunday 10th April 1959; he was 33 years of age.
In the Summer of 1962, fresh from surviving relegation by a single point, unfashionable Dutch side ADO Den Haag were on the hunt for a new manager. A member of their board had an Austrian relative who knew of a certain former international player who was looking for a break in football management. A meeting with Happel was arranged.
Up to this point in their history, ADO Den Haag had seriously lacked direction and their board found Happel’s strong, uncompromising views and his overall vision of football appealing. The appointment was confirmed on the 1st July 1962.
Den Haag’s club motto is “Alles Door Oefening” which translates as “Everything Through Practice”. This couldn’t have been more apt as their new manager’s radical training methods instantly raised standards at the club and on pitch performance improved.
From the outset, it was clear things under the new coach would be very different. Happel appeared for his first training session in a black sweat shirt with the white letters ‘ADO’ boldly imposed on the reverse. On his watch, players would take training and playing for ADO Den Haag seriously.
Key areas of focus which would be forensically curated on the training ground were: pressurising opponent’s intensely when out of possession, a stringent offside trap and a new formation, 4-3-3.
In an early intrepid address to his new players, Happel declared he wanted his side to train like Real Madrid and play like Real Madrid.
Whilst ADO wouldn’t quite manage to emulate the footballing aristocrats from Spain, under Happel’s tutelage, they would emerge from insignificance to compete at the top end of Dutch football.
The first two seasons saw steady but encouraging progress. In both 62/63 and 63/64, ADO finished 10th in the Eredivisie. They also reached the final of the KNVB cup on consecutive occasions – but lost both finals to Willem II and Fortuna 54.
De Ooievaars – The Storks, had in this period developed something they had so far lacked in their history, a clear identity. They played high risk attacking football. They played to win. It didn’t always pan out that way, but people were beginning to sit up and take notice.
ADO Den Haag were benefiting from Happel’s unbounded ambition, his unwavering doctrine that the collective came before the individual and that no stone should be left unturned in the pursuit of excellence.
Quotes from a 1963 interview with Dutch national newspaper De Telegraaf, give us an intriguing insight into the then young managers thought process at this point in his career:
“Look, the mental attitude of a squad is one of the most important things. In every sport, but especially in a team, where a few players can take a whole team up but also down.
“I’m not quite there yet with ADO. For example, the game still costs the boys too much strength and they are still too nervous, especially in front of their own audience. We won three of the four away games, but only two of the five home games.
“This year, I love it when we finish in the top half. But next year I definitely want to aim higher. National champion? Sure, that’s the ideal of every coach and player, but it depends on so many factors.
“I think it is important that we get a (flood) light installation in March. Then I want to play as many matches as possible on Wednesday evenings against good foreign teams. Just to learn. The players need to learn from better footballers. That’s what’s missing here.”
He went on emphasise the importance of youth development to a club in both a sporting and cultural sense:
“The most important thing is that in addition to the first team, ADO also has a good youth player arsenal. I want to build with that.
“My experience with Rapid Vienna has taught me that there is nothing better than raising players yourself. Because these footballers you know as your own children, also have a heart for their club, much more than footballers who are taken over from another association.
“For many years, her own breeding was Rapid’s great strength, but not hers alone. There are also plenty of examples of this in other countries with full professionalism, Chelsea in England for example.”
1964 through to 1967 would see further headway made domestically and abroad. ADO finished season 64/65 and 65/66 in third place. Again, they reached a KNVB cup final (‘66), but again silverware eluded them – this time in a 1-0 loss to Sparta Rotterdam.
The Summers of 1965 and 1966 would see Happel’s insatiable thirst for continental opposition quenched as ADO entered the (pre-UEFA) Intertoto Cup. This came at the expense of the players’ summer break.
First time round in ‘65, ADO finished third in a group containing Lugano, Malmo and West German side Borussia Neunkirchen.
The following year, they were grouped with RFC Liege, Biel Bienne and Italian side Brescia. They cruised to first place, finishing undefeated – which meant their participation in the competition would extend beyond the Summer and into Autumn.
In October, they saw off Swedish side IFK Goteburg in the quarter final. This set up a semi-final against Inter Bratislava which would be played, and lost, 2-3 on aggregate in March 1967.
Following a fourth-place finish domestically in 66-67, the players would’ve been forgiven for thinking they had finally earned a period of sporting convalescence.
However, that Summer in a bid to help grow the beautiful game in America, ADO along with eleven other clubs headed stateside to compete in the United Soccer Association. In an effort to jump start domestic interest in football, a group of wealthy business men interested in the sport personally funded the new league and the clubs involved.
ADO would be paid a $250,000 participation fee, around $2,000,000 today. Huge money for the club commercially. They would play their ‘home’ matches at the Kezar stadium in San Francisco under the striking alias ‘San Francisco Golden Gate Gales’.
For 6 weeks they competed in the Western Division against fellow imports Los Angeles Wolves (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Chicago Mustangs (Cagliari), Houston Stars (Bangu Atletico Clube), Vancouver Royal Canadians (Sunderland) and Dallas Tornado (Dundee United). San Francisco finished second behind LA, thus missing out on a place in the final by two points.
The Eastern Division comprised of Washington Whips (Aberdeen), Cleveland Stokers (Stoke City), Toronto City (Hibernian), Detroit Cougars (Glentoran), New York Skyliners (C.A Cerro) and Boston Rovers (Shamrock Rovers). Washington topped the table and as a result went through to face Los Angeles in the final where they would lose 6-5.
The reason foreign clubs were imported was that a rival league had also started that Summer – the National Professional Soccer League – and it had been handed a TV contract with broadcaster CBS. By importing established foreign clubs, the thinking was that the higher quality on show would prove to be more attractive than the amateur set up offered on live TV.
Neither league was a success. Crowds were low in the U.S.A and viewing figures were even worse for the N.P.S.L. The rival divisions would merge after just one campaign to form the North American Soccer League and teams such as the San Francisco Golden Gate Gales were consigned to history.
Whilst the league itself may have failed in it’s overall objective, to have his players abroad and together for six weeks would prove hugely beneficial to Happel. It ensured extra time spent on the training pitch and another opportunity to face off against clubs from outside Holland. A great camaraderie also developed among the squad which would serve them well in the coming domestic campaign.
Season 67/68 would prove to be the pinnacle of the Happel era at Den Haag. ADO finished 4th in the Eredivise and finally managed to shed the tag of bridesmaids by claiming the first domestic honour in their history (since Dutch football had become professional in 1954), beating the mighty Ajax 2-1 in the final of the KNVB cup.
The cup win ensured ADO would participate in the following year’s Cup Winners Cup, where they reached the second round, exiting at the hands of West German side FC Koln. Domestically the team slid down to 6th place but the football played by Happel’s side and the revolutionary training techniques he had implemented over the last seven years had caught the attention of bigger fish in the pond.
Feyenoord had claimed a league and cup double under the guidance of former youth coach Ben Peeters. In a move that seems quite incredible today, the board decided to remove Peeters from his position at the successful seasons end and place him back in charge of the youths. Peeters surprisingly stepped aside without fuss, declaring “It’s part of our profession. It has happened in pleasant consultation. You just have to see it as a business here.”
The reasoning was that the club felt that with the domestic success, Peeters had reached his ceiling. In the double winning season, they hadn’t fared well in continental football, losing out to Newcastle United in the first round of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. For the forth coming venture into Europe’s premier competition, they wanted a modern and radical approach. Step forward Ernst Happel.
By Calum Maltman – @BlogEFI
Photograph by Peters, Hans / Anefo, Source:
Vertrek Nederlands elftal van Schipol; Ernst Happel
Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANeFo), 1945-1989,
Auteursrechthebbende Nationaal Archief CC-BY-SA, Nummer toegang 2.24.01.05 Bestanddeelnummer 929-7424
