Leopold Drucker

Leopold Drucker (22 February 1903 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary – 25 February 1988 in New York City, United States) was an Austrian international footballer and coach.

Career
Leopold Drucker began his career in the youth team of the then second-league club SC Hakoah Wien . He made his first match in the first team of Hakoah, which had just been promoted to the top division, in December 1920. He scored a goal on his debut. Drucker was only used very sporadically in the first team and mostly played in the reserves. After the signing of the Hungarian international Béla Guttmann, Drucker played from 1923 on for Floridsdorfer AC. Drucker became a regular player and was mostly in the starting line-up in the 1925/26 first division season. During this season, Drucker was called up to the Vienna city team twice and was used against Krakow in September 1925 and against Preßburg in March 1926.

Leopold Drucker's former club Hakoah prepared their first trip to America in the spring of 1926 and wanted to send a strong squad  to America. Since the original intention of signing Kálmán Konrád on loan from the Amateur SV could not be realized, Drucker was brought back from the FAC. The tour was a success and led to a number of Hakoah players - including Drucker - being offered contracts by clubs in the United States. Drucker accepted Brooklyn Wanderers' offer and moved to New York.

Drucker played for two seasons for the Wanderers in the ASL before some clubs split off in 1928 and founded the rival league ESL. Drucker moved to the newly founded New York Hakoah. He stayed with the club after the merger of ESL and ASL. In total, Drucker played 136 games in the ASL.

In 1931 Leopold Drucker returned to Hakoah. In July 1932 he was called up to the Austrian national team for the first time and played in the 4–3 win against Sweden in Stockholm. Leopold Drucker was the only Hakoah player to play for the national team during the Wunderteam era.

In 1933 Drucker left Hakoah for the third time and went to Olympique Marseille. In the 1933–34 season, Drucker played 16 league games for Marseille and reached the final of the national cup, which was lost 1-2 against FC Sète.

After the end of this season he moved to Malta  and worked as a player and coach at Floriana FC, St. George's FC and FC Melita. After the outbreak of World War II, he moved to Palestine in 1940, where he worked as a player and coach in Jerusalem. After the end of the war, he moved to New York.

References

Category:1903 births
Category:1988 deaths
Category:Austrian footballers
Category:Players of the Austrian national football team
Category:Austrian football managers
Category:Austrian football midfielders