From my window
Bobert-Guérin | 03/11/1933

Honor to Platzer! Tribute to Platzer! May Platzer receive the assurance of our highest consideration here.

There is indeed enthusiasm, you will think for a man who plays the role of porter. May be. But he plays it, this role, in the Vienna football team with an intelligence, a certainty, a composure that reconciles us with the art of playing football and keeping goals.

I have a friend who never starts a little speech without preceding it with "Before the war...".

Let's go back further in the past and say: "Formerly". So, in the past, the goalkeeper played with both feet and hands. He was less flexible, of course, less acrobatic, more rigid in his movements, less daring, less courageous in his dives, because first of all he never dived. Amateur that he was, he would not have risked a fractured skull to save the ball. But he knew how to return the ball with his foot and fist on the fly and he would not have made the mistake of playing the ball to six yards following small kicks from the back. Everyone observed the instructions. A goalkeeper who puts the ball back in play never knows where he sends it and nine times out of ten, the shot goes to the advantage of the opponent. The ball was played by a full-back who had learned to kick, to kick if you will, and who in no wind or light wind served the wings, halves or forwards. The rear having finally declared themselves tired, the English admire the small pass to the goal which kicks as far as it can, without any precision.

But Platzer has restored the goalkeeper of the past. In case of danger he kicks the ball or releases the ball with his foot. But he also knows how to dive when the ball skims the ground, or when a forward escapes while dribbling.

He also revived the hand pass that English amateur goalkeeper often used in ancient times... well before the war. He thus serves with precision one of the running backs who can in turn quickly feed the forwards of his team.

The method is excellent. It saves appreciable time in the attack. It allows the rapid launch of an offensive. However, the goalkeeper must have learned the pass, like a rugby opening half, because this pass must be long, powerful and precise. The arm clearances made by Platzer often reach a length of 25 to 30 meters.

The method is not recommended in a headwind, but in no wind or favorable wind, it is very effective.

So history is renewed. Platzer, the diving in addition, took again the tradition of the English amateur goalkeeper. One day we will end up exhuming the method of attack of the old Corinthians, with G. O. Smith as leader, and presenting it to us as a whole new formula.