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Matthias Sindelar (February 10, 1903 — January 23, 1939) was an Austrian footballer of Czech descent, member of the Austria national team during the 1934 World Cup. He was voted the best Austrian footballer of the 20th Century in a poll by the IFFHS,^[1] and was named Austria's sportsman of the century.^[2]

He was born Matěj Šindelář in Kozlov near Jihlava, Moravia (then part of Austria-Hungary) into a poor family of blacksmith Jan Šindelář and his wife Marie née Švengrová. The family moved to Vienna in 1905 and settled in the district of Favoriten with a large Czech-speaking community. Young Matěj/Matthias began playing football in the streets of Vienna, where he earned the nickname Der Papierene (Man of Paper) for his extraordinary ability to slip through defences and avoid robust tackles.^{[citation needed]} At the age of 15, the forward signed for Hertha Vienna before breaking into the first team at FK Austria Vienna, guiding them to three Austrian Cups in his first three seasons there.

Sindelar became an essential part of the Austrian 'Wunderteam' that was coached by Hugo Meisl. He scored the winner in his debut match for the side in a 2-1 victory over Czechoslovakia in 1926. He then scored two goals in the team's 7-1 win over Switzerland. From 1926 to 1937, Sindelar was capped 44 times for his country, scoring 27 goals.

Sindelar was especially prominent at the 1934 FIFA World Cup when Austria reached the semi-finals of the tournament only to be defeated, controversially, to the host nation. The high point was their defeat of Hungary when Sindelar was matched up against centre-half Gyorgy Sarosi, who would go on to claim a runners-up medal at the following World Cup in France. In a bruising encounter, one Hungarian was sent-off, and Johann Horvath, the Austrian midfielder, was injured and missed the semi-final against Italy.

Always refusing to leave his home country, Sindelar refused to play for Germany when the Austrian state was annexed by the Nazis in 1938, citing old age or injury as his excuse.

On January 23, 1939 both Sindelar and his girlfriend Camilla Castagnola were found dead at the apartment they shared in Vienna; the official verdict cited carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause.

The Austrian writer Friedrich Torberg later dedicated the poem "Auf den Tod eines Fußballers" ("On the death of a footballer") to Sindelar. The poem suggested that he had committed suicide as a result of the German Anschluss of Austria in 1938. On the other hand, it has been tought and reported that his death was accidental, caused by a defective chimney.^[3] However, in a 2000s documentary screened on the BBC, Egon Ulbrich, a lifelong friend of the Sindelar, stated that a local official was bribed to record his death as an accident, which ensured that he would receive a state funeral. "According to the Nazi rules, a person who had been murdered or who has committed suicide cannot be given a grave of honour. So we had to do something to ensure that the criminal element involved in his death was removed," he stated. ^[4]