Max Strasser (23 May 1904 – 16 November 1967) was a Swiss

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 le ...

who played for

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, and ...

. He played mainly as a

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, but also as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Football career

Strasser played his youth football for

and then advanced to the first team before their 1924–25 season. He made his domestic league debut on 26 October 1924, in the home game at the Landhof against

Concordia Basel FC Concordia Basel is a Swiss association football, football club based in Basel. The club was founded in 1907. They play in the 2nd regional league which is the fifth level, and their home stadium was Rankhof Stadium until the 2008-09 season. F ...

. He scored his first goal for the club in the last game of the 1925–26 Serie A season on 29 May 1926 against the same opponents, Concordia. It was Basel's first goal of the match, which they won 3–0. At the end of Basel's 1929–30 season, the team set off on a Scandinavian football tour, including a visit to Germany. Six games were played in Norway, but the first was played in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. The team travelled with 15 players, their trainer

Kertész Kertész is a Hungarian language, Hungarian occupational surname, which means gardener, derived from ''kert'' and ''kertez'' ("garden").''Dictionary of American Family Names''"Kertész Family History" Oxford University Press, 2013. Retrieved on 20 ...

and two functionaries. The journey started with a train ride on 2 June 1930 at quarter past seven in the morning from Basel and they arrived in Leipzig at half passed eight that evening. The game against VfB Leipzig was played the next evening. The following one and a half days were spent travelling by train, train, ship, train and train again to Drammen in Norway. Only a few hours after their arrival, the team played a game against a joint team Mjøndalen IF /

SBK Drafn Ski- og Ballklubben Drafn is a Norwegian multi-sports club from Drammen, founded in 1910. The club, which takes its name from the Norse name of Drammen, was founded as a merger of the clubs Ulf (founded 1905) and Njord (founded 1906). In 1916 it ...

. The next day was a train journey to

Porsgrunn is a city and municipality in Telemark in the county of Vestfold og Telemark in Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Porsgrunn. The municipality of Porsgrunn was ...

and two matches in 24 hours. Following that they travelled per bus and then by ship in a 48-hour journey to

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

for a match against SK Brann. Another ship voyage, this time to

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

, two games against Viking FK, then a ship voyage back to Bergen. Finally, the tour ended with three train journeys in three days, Bergen/Oslo/Berlin/Basel, arriving at home on 20 June. The result of this tour was seven games, four wins, one draw, two defeats and approximately 160 hours of travelling. Strasser was participant in this tour, but played in only three of these games. Between 1924 and 1930 Strasser played 86 games for Basel and scored 13 goals; 52 games were in the Swiss Serie A, 5 were in the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

and 29 were friendlies. He scored 4 goals in the domestic league, 4 in the cup and the other 5 in friendlies.

References

Sources

* Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2017/2018. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. * Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strasser, Max FC Basel players Swiss men's footballers Men's association football forwards 1904 births 1967 deaths