The Top Twenty Five Jews In The World Of Football – Part 1
Football is the most played and viewed game in the world. This is a game played by millions of people in all the corners of the world.
So it is not a surprise if we think that in these millions of people there are people from all sorts of backgrounds, nationalities, creed, colour, traditions, language and religion.
So in the Jewish holidays that include Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Rosh Hashanah, it only seems right that we take a look at the best Jewish footballers in history.
Jon Stewart: The top of the list was made by Jon Stewart; he is a pop-culture icon and a comedian. He was a long standing host of the Daily Show and an adamant footballer from his old College days at William and Mary.
Ethan Zohn: The Survivor’s winner Ethan Zohn won a million dollars in the third season of the show and went on to found Grassroot Soccer.
This is a non profit organization that raises awareness and money for HIV/AIDS through the game of football.
Even before the reality show win, Zohn was the Vassar College goalkeeper and has played football on a professional level for Cape Cod Crusaders and Hawaii Tsunami in the USL.
The player was also reported with a form of Hodgkin’s disease in 2009 but is now reported to be in remission.
David Beckham: David Beckham’s maternal grandfather was Jewish and even though he regularly attended church while growing up, he has referred himself as being half Jewish.
Lothar Matthaus: The renowned defender from Germany is also quarter Jewish. His grandmother was Jewish and stillbrought the Jewish effect to the family. Currently he is the Bulgarian National team boss.
Edgar Davids: Another athlete that adds to the quarter Jewish list is Edgar Davids, the Dutch footballer currently playing for Football palace and he plays as a defensive midfielder.
Gottfried Fuchs: Gottfrieh Fuchs was a German Jew and he once scored ten goals in a single match in 1912 in the Sotckholm Olympics in a sixteen to nil defeat to Russia. He had a total of fourteen goals in just six matches.
Fuchs fled from Germany during the Holocaust and ran to Canada where he passed away.
Hakoah Vienna in the Nineteen Twenties and Fabian: The Hakoah Vienna in the nineteen twenties was full of players like Richard Fried, Max Gold, Jozsef Gruenfeld, Max Gruenwald, Moritz Jaeusler, Erno Schwarz and Alois Hess.
These were natives of Hungary and members of a famous Austrian club that was inducted in the International Jewish Hall of Fame.
Fabian was thought to be the best goalkeeper of the world at that time and became world famous after the club’s United States tour in 1926 when the team did a ten game tour.
Fabian also played for the Austrian national team and then in 1927 moved to the United States to play for the American Soccer League.
He once broke his arm in a game and the most shocking thing is that, at that time substitutions were not allowed and Fabian actually put his arm in a sling and continued to play the game.
Miraculously seven minutes later the player scored the winning goal to receive the league title.
Mordechai Spiegler: Mordechai Spiegler was a striker for the Israeli national team in the sixties and the seventies and to date remains one of the country’s all time top scorers with thirty three goals and eighty three caps.
He also played for Paris Saint Germain when in France and also paired up with the famous Pele in the North American Soccer League’s New York Cosmos in the nineteen seventies.
He is also the only player who has been selected to be the Israeli player of the year a record four times.
Johan Neeskens: Johan Neeskens is a football coach and as a player played for the 1974 and 78 World Cups.
Neeskens scored seventeen goals in forty nine appearances while playing for Oranje. His football career includes playing at Barcelona, Ajax and with the New York Cosmos.
Recently he was in Barcelona working as an assistant to Frank Rijkaard and followed him to Galatasaray in Turkey.
Article Continued in Part 2
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