Words are difficult to find when we are faced with the loss of someone whose departure has made the world an emptier place – not only for those of us who have had the honour to get acquainted with him, who have loved him and respected him greatly.

Josef Masopust was one of those personalities that manage to fulfil their lives completely. His innate talent and honest, single-minded effort enabled him to attain complete mastery in the most popular sport on the planet. A sport enjoyed by millions who try to excel in it; watched and loved beyond measure by hundreds of millions more. However, it is a sport that can be tricky. Football fans are there to praise the best players to the skies but also condemn them without mercy. In this discipline, players fight for their place in the sun in the toughest competition while even the strongest personality is subject to constant and merciless public attention. It is therefore extremely difficult to reach the very top and remain there.

However, football is also the most wonderful of all sports. For a long time now, it has been much more than 'just a sport', in its original and traditional form. A discipline that has become one of the great phenomena of human society and an integral part of the lives of people of all generations, regardless of their education, interests, profession or character.

Josef Masopust, voted and declared in the year 2000 to be the greatest Czech football personality as well as the Czech football player of the century, was, is and will continue to be one of the pre-eminent representatives of this singular phenomenon, not only in his country of origin, but worldwide.

The preface to his biography entitled “Football named Masopust”, published twice, first in 2003 and then eight years later in an extended edition on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, reads as follows:

“The eldest of six children from the family of a coal miner became one of the most famous football players of his time. […] Just like his whole generation, it was in the 1950s that he matured as a man as well as a player. Despite being originally a fan of the Slavia football club in his heart, fate eventually lead him to become a member of another Prague team – the Dukla. In its red and yellow jersey, as well as a member of the Czechoslovak national team, he distributed such an immense quantity of football joy that it would be enough for several successful careers. […] Both on the pitch and elsewhere, he always remained true to himself. Whether with or without the ball, the viewers always had the pleasure to witness a true man of honour. An impressive football strategist, not very tall, but creative and diligent, a player full of strength who by the time of his thirtieth birthday had become a sports personality of the first rank. A true star that shines on the football skies once in a long while and makes its nation proud of him forever. […] Still, he never forgot that he was born into a humble, unenviable setting. In spite of his successes on the pitch, he remained an ordinary, honest and, in fact, inconspicuous man. Never did he harm anyone or look down on others, even though he received a lot of fame, both the good and the bad side of it...”

During the years 1954-1966 Josef Masopust played in sixty-three official international matches. Many of them wrote the most glorious chapters of Czechoslovak and Czech football history, frequently thanks to his contribution. In 1960 he was a member of the national team that came third in the European Championship in France. The climax of his career, however, was still to follow. In 1962 Masopust was among the authors of one of the greatest successes of our football history – second place in the World Cup in Chile. In the unforgettable final against Brazil, it was Josef Masopust who scored the first goal. This was the pinnacle of the admirable career of a man who subsequently received greater honours than any other Czech player before him and, for decades to come, any other Czech player after him.

Six months after the end of the 1962 World Cup, Josef Masopust was awarded the most prestigious football prize – the Ballon d’Or – as the best European player. He was the first “non-forward”, the first Czechoslovak player and the first East European player to receive the prize. In the years between 1963-1965, Josef Masopust played twice in the world selection team and once in the European selection team; his team-mates were big names of football such as Eusébio, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Raymond Kopa, Denis Law, Francisco Gento, Ferenc Puskás, Uwe Seeler, Lev Yashin, Karl-Heinz Schnellinger and many others.

Josef Masopust was the first Czechoslovak football player who was allowed – at the end of his career, in 1968, at the age of 37 – to play with a foreign team. His last two football seasons were spent as an active player in Belgium.

Masopust’s career as a player was followed by a successful career as a football coach. Among the peaks of this second career was the victory of his team Zbrojovka Brno in the national league in 1978 and the leadership of the Czechoslovak national team from the years 1984 to1987. We must not fail to mention his coaching abroad as well, namely in Belgium and Indonesia.

Josef Masopust was highly recognized and admired by the most eminent and most respected world players. Many of them became his true lifelong friends.

The famous Brazilian player Pelé, viewed by Josef Masopust and many experts as the best football player of all times, said about him: “Masopust played like a Brazilian. He looked like one, behaved like one and played football as if he was born in my country. He was amazing with the ball.”

Czechoslovakia’s goalkeeper Ivo Viktor: “Thanks to his thinking, he was a football genius comparable to Pelé or Cruyff.”