Leon Sperling

Sperling (fourth from right) with the team of Cracovia Krakow ( 1921)

Leon Sperling ( born August 7, 1900 in Krakow, † 15 to 20 December 1941 Lviv ) was a Polish football player who played for Cracovia Krakow.

Life and career

Leon Sperling was born on 7 August 1900 in a Jewish family in Kraków, which was then still part of the Empire of Austria-Hungary. The football games he started with 14 years at Jutrzenka Krakow, where he played from 1914 to 1917. He then moved briefly to city rivals Cracovia Krakow, but returned a year later returned to his old club. Besides football, he completed an apprenticeship in banking. 1920 Sperling moved again and this time for good to Cracovia, where he was to remain until the end of his playing career. There he quickly conquered the only 1.64 meters tall striker a starting place. With Cracovia Sperling was a total of three times ( 1921, 1930, 1932) to win the Polish Football Championship.

Sperling was also a member of the Polish national football team and graduated for them a total of 16 games in which he scored two goals. Also in the Olympic Summer Games in Paris in 1924, he represented as a footballer his country. To the Polish contingent at that time included, among other things, players like Henryk Reyman, Emil Goerlitz or Józef Kałuża. In 1934, he finally ended his career as an active player. Overall, he had completed 381 games for Cracovia, including 84 games in 1927, the founding year of the Polish football league. Later, Sperling settled in the eastern Polish Lviv.

During the Second World War Lviv was occupied by German troops. Sperling was interned because of his Jewish origin in the Lemberg Ghetto and shot between 15 and 20 December 1941 by a drunken overseer.