1962–63 FC Basel season

FC Basel

1962–63 season
Chairman	Lucien Schmidlin
Manager	Jiří Sobotka
Ground	Landhof St. Jakob Stadium, Basel
Nationalliga A	6th
Swiss Cup	Winners
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup	First round
UEFA Intertoto Cup	Group stage
Cup of the Alps	Group stage
Top goalscorer	League: Heinz Blumer (16) All: Heinz Blumer (26)
Highest home attendance	12,000 vs Zürich 21 April 1963
Lowest home attendance	1,800 vs Sion 9 June 1963
Average home league attendance	6,130
← 1961–62 1963–64 →

The 1962–63 season was Fussball Club Basel 1893's 69th season in their existence. It was their 17th consecutive season in the top flight of Swiss football after their promotion in the 1945–46 season. They played their home games either in their old Landhof Stadium or in their new St. Jakob Stadium. Lucien Schmidlin was voted as new club chairman at the AGM to follow Ernst Weber, who had announced his retirement from the position.

The Czechoslovakian manager Jiří Sobotka was the club manager at this time, he taken the job over from Jenő Vincze a year before. A season earlier many youngsters had joined the team and this pre-season the same occurred again. Rolf Lüdi, Enrico Mazzola and Hansruedi Herr were brought up from reserve team. Abraham Levy and Arnold Hofer joined from local team FC Breitenbach, also Werner Meier joined from local team Nordstern Basel. During the winter break Bruno Gatti joined from Black Stars Basel. One of the biggest transfers made during this time was the transfer of the 19 year old Karl Odermatt from Concordia Basel. Odermatt joined in a swop, Hansueli Oberer and Silvan Thüler went to Concordia. Not only these two players left the squad, Paul Speidel moved on to Cantonal Neuchatel and Josef Hügi (Hugi II) was nearly at the end of his football career. "Seppe" Hugi had played 363 competition games for the club and in these had scored 272 goals, he moved on to play for Zürich.

Basel played a total of 51 games this season. Of these 51, 26 were in the domestic league, six were in the Swiss Cup, three in the Cup of the Alps, six in the International Football Cup (IFC) and ten were friendly matches. Of these friendly games, five were won, three drawn and two ended in a defeat, Basel scored 29 goals and conceded 19.^[1]

Basel were appointed as one of four Swiss representatives in the International Football Cup (IFC). The 1962–63 IFC took place during the summer break. Basel played in Group B3 together with PSV Eindhoven, HNK Rijeka and Rot-Weiss Oberhausen. Basel ended the group stage in third position, winners of the group were HNK Rijeka who thus advanced to the quarter-finals.^[2]

There were fourteen teams contesting in the 1962–63 Nationalliga A. These were the top 12 teams from the previous season 1961–62 and the two newly promoted teams Chiasso and Sion. The Championship was played in a double round-robin, the champions were to be qualified for 1963–64 European Cup and the bottom placed two teams in the table were to be relegated. Basel finished the championship in sixth position with twenty six points, with ten wins and six draws from 26 matches, scoring 59 goals conceding 51. FC Zürich won the championship. Heinz Blumer was Basel's top scorer this season with 16 goals, Karl Odermatt their second best goal scorer with 14.^[3]

In the Swiss Cup Basel started in the 3rd principal round, on 3 November, with a 4–0 home win, in the St. Jakob Stadium against Black Stars. In the 4th round, on 2 December, they played away against Young Boys winning 2–0. In the next round, on 30 December they won 7–1 at home against SC Burgdorf. In the quarter-finals, played on 24 February 1963, Basel were drawn away against Chiasso and Basel achieved a 2–1 victory. The semi-final was played on 24 March in the St. Jakob Stadium. Basel beat Lausanne-Sports 1–0 the winning goal scored by Markus Pfirter. The Wankdorf Stadium hosted the Swiss Cup Final on 15 April and Basel played against favorites Grasshopper Club Zürich. Two goals after half time, one by Heinz Blumer and the second from Otto Ludwig gave Basel a 2–0 victory and their third Cup win in their history.^[4]

A unique story for the history books over this Cup season belongs Bruno Gatti. In the third round he was member of the Black Stars team and was knocked out of the competition. During the winter break he was hired by Basel. In the final Gatti played the full 90 minutes and became cup winner.^[5] Another note belongs to Peter Füri who played in all the cup games except the Final because he became ill.

In the Cup of the Alps Basel were drawn into Group 2, together with Juventus, Grasshopper Club and AS Roma. These matches were all played in Basel and in Zürich. Basel played all their matches at home in the St. Jakob Stadium. In their first match, on 16 June 1963, against Juventus, they were defeated 1–5. Their second game was on 19 June against Grasshopper Club and this ended in a draw. The third match was against AS Roma, but they were defeated 1–4. Juventus qualified for final with three victories and AS Roma qualified for third place match with two victories and one defeat.^[6]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player — GK  SUI Hans-Ruedi Günthardt — GK  SUI René Jeker 1 GK  SUI Kurt Stettler 2 DF  SUI Peter Füri 3 DF  SUI Bruno Michaud 4 DF  SUI Hanspeter Stocker 5 MF  SUI Hans Weber 6 MF  SUI Carlo Porlezza 7 MF  GER Otto Ludwig 8 FW  SUI Karl Odermatt (from Concordia Basel) 9 FW  SUI Markus Pfirter 10 DF  SUI Heinz Blumer 11 FW  GER Wilfried Fritz

No. Pos. Nation Player — DF  SUI René Burri — MF  GER Josef Kiefer — MF  SUI Rolf Lüdi (from reserve team) — DF  SUI Edmund Vogt — MF  SUI Hansruedi Herr (from reserve team) — MF  SUI Abraham Levy (from FC Breitenbach) — FW  SUI Bruno Gatti (from Black Stars Basel) — MF  SUI Walter Löffel (from FC Moutier) — FW  ITA Enrico Mazzola (new) — FW  SUI Arnold Hofer (from FC Breitenbach) — FW  SUI Werner Meier (neu Nordstern Basel) — FW  SUI Niklaus Stöckli — MF  SUI Fernando Von Krannichfeldt — MF  SUI Wolfgang Walther

Players who left the squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player — FW  SUI Josef Hügi (II) (after IFC to Zürich) — FW  SUI Hansueli Oberer (after IFC to Concordia Basel)

No. Pos. Nation Player — FW  SUI Roland Denicola — MF  SUI Silvan Thüler (to Concordia Basel) — FW  SUI Paul Speidel (to Cantonal Neuchatel)

Legend

  Win   Draw   Loss   Postponed

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Zürich (C)	26	20	4	2	81	33	+48	44	Swiss Champions, qualified for 1963–64 European Cup and entered 1963–64 Intertoto Cup
2	Lausanne-Sport	26	18	4	4	81	30	+51	40	Entered 1963–64 Intertoto Cup
3	La Chaux-de-Fonds	26	12	8	6	55	44	+11	32	Entered 1963–64 Intertoto Cup
4	Young Boys	26	13	5	8	62	49	+13	31	Entered 1963–64 Intertoto Cup
5	Servette	26	11	4	11	54	39	+15	26
6	Basel	26	10	6	10	59	51	+8	26	Swiss Cup winners, qualified for 1963–64 European Cup Winners' Cup
7	Grasshopper Club	26	9	7	10	57	51	+6	25
8	Biel-Bienne	26	9	6	11	38	44	−6	24
9	Grenchen	26	8	7	11	40	49	−9	23
10	Luzern	26	7	9	10	41	54	−13	23
11	Chiasso	26	7	6	13	33	69	−36	20
12	Sion	26	6	7	13	37	69	−32	19
13	Young Fellows Zürich	26	7	3	16	34	58	−24	17	Relegated to Nationalliga B
14	Lugano	26	4	6	16	21	53	−32	14	Relegated to Nationalliga B

First Round

Second leg not played and noted without goals as no result. Bayern Munich qualify for second round.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	HNK Rijeka (A)	6	4	1	1	18	11	+7	9
2	Rot-Weiss Oberhausen	6	3	2	1	15	12	+3	8
3	Basel	6	1	3	2	16	20	−4	5
4	PSV Eindhoven	6	1	0	5	11	17	−6	2

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Juventus	3	3	0	0	12	4	+8	6	Qualified for final
2	AS Roma	3	2	0	1	11	4	+7	4	Qualified for third place match
3	Basel	3	0	1	2	3	10	−7	1
4	Grasshopper Club	3	0	1	2	5	13	−8	1

• History of FC Basel
• List of FC Basel players
• List of FC Basel seasons

• Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2014/2015. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. ISBN 978-3-7245-2027-6
• Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel. ISBN 978-3-7245-2305-5
• The FCB team 1962–63 at fcb-archiv.ch
• Switzerland 1962–63 by Erik Garin at Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation

• FC Basel official site