Sigi Strizl (Apr 12, 1944 – Nov 3, 2022)
Today is my birthday. Along with my thoughts of growing older, recently returning from the World Cup in Qatar, and my ongoing interest in U.S. Soccer history - I am repeatedly reminded of the recent death of Sigi Strizl. Most of you won’t know who Sigi Strizl was. But you also won’t know that for almost two years, I’ve been retracing the stories of many forgotten USMNT players. For myself, Sigi, and those of you with an interest in the subject…here’s a little story about Sigi.
"They are good memories, some disappointments. I would have loved to have gone to World Cup games. But overall, these are memories that are good." - Sigi Strizl.
With Atlanta United hosting my Portland Timbers for the 2018 MLS Cup, I took advantage of my itinerary to track down an unlikely Georgia resident. Siegfried “Sigi” Stritzl lived with his daughter’s family about 45 minutes outside the city. It was a setting in which locals would have presumed their former professional athlete neighbor had been a baseball player, maybe a second baseman, or possibly a college football halfback. After all, these sports and positions fit his short stature and the region’s sporting interests in the 1960s-70s. But as we sat at the family’s dining table, Stritzl told stories of living and playing soccer in New York City. There he would frequently “run into and start to reminisce” with former teammates and opponents, who would tell him, “You had dribbling skills that remind me of Messi." It was also where he played "old-timers" league soccer until he was 50 years old, chipping the keeper for a goal in his final game. Although he lived in New York throughout his playing career, Atlanta was the site of one of his greatest successes with the U.S. National Team.
Stritzl was born in Yugoslavia, but his family journeyed to Austria on foot when he was just one year old, arriving just as World War II ended. Strizl, his parents, and ten siblings remained in a refugee camp for the next eleven years. "We had a good time. We didn’t know any better. In the camps, there was always soccer games going on. There were no goals - just put down a shirt or something. That’s how I spent the whole afternoon every day.”
When Stritzl immigrated to the U.S. and settled in New York, his sister ensured soccer continued to be a significant part of his life, orchestrating his introduction at Hoge's Bar. The tavern served as the dressing room for the German American League club, Blau Weiss Gottschee, and despite his diminutive size, Strizl’s dribbling skills earned him a place on the junior team. As a teammate once remarked, "To get you mad, Sigi would dribble past you. And to get you really mad, he would come back and dribble past you again.”
Strizl was only 17 when he joined Blau Weiss Gottschee's first team, playing one season before signing with the NASL's Baltimore Bays. In 1969, he won the NASL rookie-of-the-year award and introduced the league to his signature free-kick. "The first game of the season, we played the Atlanta Chiefs. I scored two goals from the corner. I had such a curve on the ball. The goalie came out, and I swerved it into the far corner. After that, they started calling it ‘Sigi’s banana kick special.' You know 'Bend it Like Beckham?' I scored goals like him before he was born.”
After the rocky flight home from Honduras in 1965, it was three years until the National Team's next match. The U.S. roster for the two East Coast friendlies against Israel included only two players from the previous qualification campaign, Chicagoans Wily Roy and Adolph Bachmeier. Sigi Strizl would have been the third, but he was drafted by the U.S. Army and spent 1965 in Vietnam. Despite being called up to the National Teams for the first time in 1968, even the American stalwart Bachmeier conceded, "Sigi, you are the best technical player we have in our team."
After a loss and a draw against Israel, the U.S. set their sights on World Cup qualification, a task made potentially easier by Mexico automatically qualifying as World Cup 1970 hosts. The Americans' first-round opponents were Canada and Bermuda, beginning with a match in Toronto, where Canada had defeated Bermuda 4-0 the week prior. Wily Roy opened the scoring for the U.S., but Canada responded with a first-half equalizer and took a 4-1 lead before committing a last-minute foul just outside the penalty box. It was Strizl who took the free kick. "Just curled it over the wall. Boom! Sigi's banana kick special.”
Before hosting Canada in Atlanta, the U.S. team spent a week in Haiti, squeezing in three friendly matches. The Americans won the first match, 6-3, with Wily Roy, Peter Millar, and Dietrich "Trichy" Albrecht scoring braces. While the U.S. lost their remaining games in Haiti, 5-2 and 1-0, they received the uplifting news that Canada and Bermuda had played a scoreless draw. If the U.S. won their remaining three games, they would top the group, and Strizl and his teammates felt confident. "I knew that we should have beat Canada in Canada, and I knew back home we were going to beat them."
In the return match, the U.S. once again had difficulty converting possession into goals against Canada. Midway through the second half, the game remained scoreless when the Americans earned a free-kick, and Strizl's goal in Toronto was fresh in the Canadians' minds as they organized a wall. "I was going to take the shot, but I ran past it. They got frozen on the line. As soon as I ran over, Tichy Albrecht went whack - the other direction. Boom, goal!” The legend of Sigi’s banana kick special had struck again. This time as a decoy, producing the game's only goal and keeping the Americans’ hopes of World Cup qualification alive.
