Karl Rappan (26 September 1905 – 2 January 1996) was an Austrian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

and coach. He played and managed mostly in Switzerland, where he won multiple titles. He had four tenures as coach of the Switzerland national team, which he managed in three

World Cups A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

, and is the all-time leader in matches won as coach of the Swiss team. He introduced a major football strategy known as the "bolt", which gave origin to the ''

catenaccio ''Catenaccio'' () or The Chain is a tactical system in football with a strong emphasis on defence. In Italian, ''catenaccio'' means "door-bolt", which implies a highly organised and effective backline defence focused on nullifying opponents ...

'' system. He also helped create the

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from , "between" and , " betting pool"),Most precisely, from ( football pool); cf. originally called the International Football Cup, was a summer football competition between European clubs. The competition was dis ...

Playing career

Rappan, born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, played as a half and forward. As a teenager, he played for the club ''Donau Wien''. In 1924, he joined Wacker Vienna, where he played four years. He was selected to the Austria national team in while at Wacker. He then played one season at each of the clubs

FK Austria Wien Fußballklub Austria Wien AG (), known in English as Austria Vienna, and Austria Wien in German language in Europe, German-speaking countries, is an Football in Austria, Austrian professional association football club from the capital city of Vi ...

and

Rapid Wien Sportklub Rapid (), commonly known as Rapid Wien or Rapid Vienna in English, is an Austrian professional football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid has won the most Austrian championship titles (32), including the f ...

, winning the 1929–30 Austrian league with the latter. Rappan then moved to Switzerland, where he started playing for

Servette FC Servette FC is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Geneva, founded in March 1890 with rugby as its first sporting activity, and named after the Geneva district of the same name. The football section was created on ...

in 1931, becoming a player-coach until his retirement as a player in 1935, and winning the Swiss league twice with the club, in 1933 and 1934. In 1927, he was capped twice for the Austria national team, scoring one goal,Karl Rappan summary
- rapidarchiv.at - Official Archives of SK Rapid Wien, by Gerald Pichler and Herbert Pawlek - retrieved October 2006. against

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in a 6–0 win.

Coaching career

Rappan spent almost all of his managerial career – which extended from 1932 to 1963 – coaching Swiss teams and the Switzerland national team. After his role as player-coach at Servette, Rappan became a full-time coach and joined

Grasshopper Club Zürich Grasshopper Club Zurich (GCZ), commonly referred to as Grasshopper Club or simply just GC, is a professional sports club, multisports club based in Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland. They are nicknamed the ''Grasshoppers'' or sometimes just ''Hopper ...

, managing the

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

club from 1935 to 1948, and winning five domestic league titles and seven cups. In 1948, he returned to Servette for a second period at the club, now as coach only. He remained there until 1957, adding one more league title and one cup to his palmares. After Servette, Rappan had a one-season spell at FC Zürich. From 1960 to 1963, he coached the Switzerland national team exclusively, and after this last period in charge of the national squad, he joined club Lausanne-Sport, being their coach from 1964 to 1968, and winning one league title in 1965. After almost four decades of service in Swiss football, he returned to Austria to be the technical director of

– his former club as a player – for the 1969–70 season.

The "bolt"

During the early 1930s, when the use of the "WM" system was spreading, Rappan developed a tactical system under which players switched positions and duties depending on the game's pattern.Play of the game > Strategy and tactics
- britannica.com - by Richard C. Giulianotti, Jack D. Rollin, and Bernard Joy,

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

. Retrieved October 2006. The system varied largely from the classic 2-3-5 formation and the WM, focusing in defense. The team would fold back into its own half and wait for the opponent's attack, conceding possession of the midfield. The system received the name of ''verrou'' or "bolt". It has also been called "Swiss bolt". Reportedly, Rappan looked for a system that was less rigid and less dependent on individual talent than the WM. It relied on collective work, and gave the amateurs of the time a chance to compensate to some extent for their lack of skill. The defensive strategy of the bolt relied on a mixture of zonal and man-marking. It was the first system to play four players in defense, using one of them as a "security bolt" supporting the other three. It is acknowledged that the bolt largely influenced the ''

'' (Italian for ''bolt'') and its use of the '' libero'' (sweeper) in defense. Rappan's system was never fully understood by many people at the time, and the coach himself never discussed it, keeping a certain mystery around it. It received both praise and criticism. The system did demonstrate to be successful at the 1938 World Cup. Switzerland eliminated

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in the first round, where the match that ended in a 1–1 draw was replayed, with the Swiss winning the second match 4–2. Two weeks prior to the World Cup, Switzerland had defeated

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in a friendly match.

Switzerland national team

Rappan had four different tenures as head coach of the Switzerland national team: 1937 to 1938, 1942 to 1949, 1953 to 1954, and 1960 to 1963. He managed Switzerland in 77 international matches, the most ever by any Swiss team coach. He won 29 matches, also a record, and lost 36 times, second-most all-time.Switzerland - International Matches since 1905
- by Erik Garin,

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

. With Rappan as its coach, Switzerland qualified to the World Cups of

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

(where they beat

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and lost 7–5 to Austria in quarterfinals), and

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

. Rappan recorded three wins, one draw, and six losses as a coach in World Cup finals tournaments. His last match as Switzerland's coach was on 11 November 1963 against

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, a 2–2 draw.

After retirement

Rappan, who had the idea of creating a European league, helped Ernst Thommen, the Managing Director for the Swiss Football Pool, conceive the

, which started in 1961.Background on the Intertoto Cup
By Søren Florin Elbech, www.mogiel.net Rappan died on 2 January 1996 in

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Honours

As a player

Rapid Wien * Austrian league: 1929–30 Servette * Swiss league: 1933, 1934

As coach

Grasshoppers * Swiss league: 1936–37, 1938–39, 1941–42, 1942–43, 1944–45 * Swiss cup: 1936–37, 1937–38, 1939–40, 1940–41, 1941–42, 1942–43, 1945–46 Servette * Swiss league: 1949-50 * Swiss cup: 1948-49