He played 405 matches and scored 202 goals in the Swiss first division from 1935 to 1956,[1] a period during which he won 7 league titles and 9 cup titles with Grasshopper.
He was a member of the Swiss national team from 1936 to 1954, earning 71 caps and scoring 15 goals,[2] including one in their first-round victory over Nazi Germany in the 1938 World Cup. He was the first player in World Cup history to score against the country of his birth; the only other player to have done so was Breel Embolo, also for Switzerland, against Cameroon in 2022.[3]
Bickel is one of only two footballers ever to participate in World Cups before and after World War II, the other being Sweden's Erik Nilsson.[4]