THEY ARE ONLY 10 IN THE WORLD !
Picture : Vsevolod Bobrov as a captain with Ferenc Puskas before the game Moscow vs Budapest (1952).
Players with caps in both football and ice hockey
On 29 May of this year, a legend of Finnish sport Teppo Rastio has passed away. He was one of just 10 athletes in the world history who played for their countries both in football and ice hockey.
Being much more famous for his ice hockey feats (he is a member of national Hall of Fame), Rastio was also quite successful in football where he earned one cap.
The list of such athletes, in chronological order, is given below, along with national team matches in both popular sports for each of them. The most prominent of them are Vsevolod Bobrov (Soviet Union), Vlastimil Bubník (Czechoslovakia) and Sven “Tumba” Johansson (Sweden).
After Rastio’s death, his countryman Timo Nummelin remains the only one of these 10 versatile masters who is still alive (aged 74).
| NATIONAL TEAM PLAYERS | IN FOOTBALL AND | ICEHOCKEY | |||
| Player | Country | Football | Icehockey | ||
| Period | Caps | Period | Caps | ||
| Arvīds Jurgens | Latvia | 1924-1935 | 38 | 1932-1936 | 16 |
| Sven Bergqvist | Sweden | 1935-1943 | 35 | 1932-1946 | 55 |
| Robert Sadowski | Romania | 1938-1947 | 5 | 1937-1947 | 10 |
| Mihai Flamaropol | Romania | 1948-1951 | 4 | 1941-1951 | 7 |
| Andrei Bărbulescu | Romania | 1935-1938 | 3 | 1947 | 1 |
| Vsevolod Bobrov | Soviet Union | 1952 | 3 | 1954-1957 | 59 |
| Sven “Tumba” Johansson | Sweden | 1956 | 1 | 1950-1966 | 245 |
| Vlastimil Bubník | Czechoslovakia | 1957-1960 | 11 | 1951-1964 | 127 |
| Teppo Rastio | Finland | 1958 | 1 | 1954-1962 | 106 |
| Timo Nummelin | Finland | 1967-1971 | 11 | 1972-1982 | 225 |
Pictures:
Vsevolod Bobrov as a captain with the ice hockey World Cup trophy (1954).
Vlastimil Bubník (right) attacks the French goal in the Euro 1960 game vs France.
Vlastimil Bubník, a player of Czechoslovak ice hockey national team
Sven “Tumba” Johansson, captain of ice hockey “Tre Kronor”