Georgijs Smirnovs (born 1936) is a Latvian former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player and manager. In 2006 Latvian Football Federation selected Smirnovs as one of the 11 greatest footballers in the first 100 years of football in Latvia.

Biography

Born in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Smirnovs played football with a local factory club. In 1957 he was sent to

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

, Latvia for military service. He got to play with

FK Dinamo Rīga FK or fk may refer to: In arts and entertainment: * Flyer Killer, fictional automated robots in the ''Terminator'' film franchise. * Fox Kids, a former American children's television programming block. * Funky Kong, a video game character. Place ...

with which he won the Latvian Cup and was noted by many as a very talented forward. After just six matches that he had played with Dinamo,

Vadims Ulbergs Vadims Ulbergs (17 July 1921 – 11 July 2008) was a Latvian football (soccer), football player and manager, one of the most respected veterans of Latvian football. Biography His first choice in sports was basketball but soon he joined the most ...

from

Daugava Rīga FK Daugava Rīga was a Latvian football club, based at the Daugava Stadium in Riga. They played in the Latvian Higher League. The last manager of the team was Armands Zeiberliņš. From the club's foundation in 2003 till 2009 the club was k ...

offered Smirnovs to join the strongest Latvian club. He made his debut with Daugava in the 1st Soviet league in the 1957 and played with the club until 1971. In his best season in 1960 when Daugava played in the Soviet Top League Smirnovs scored 11 goals and was nominated to the list of the 33 best Soviet footballers of the year. Smirnovs also managed to score three goals in two matches against the legendary

Lev Yashin Lev Ivanovich Yashin (russian: Лев Иванович Яшин; 22 October 1929 – 20 March 1990), nicknamed the "Black Spider" or the "Black Panther", was a Soviet professional footballer regarded by many as the greatest goalkeeper in the hi ...

in that year. After the season Smirnovs got offers from several top league squads, but he remained loyal to Daugava. In 1967 Smirnovs was offered to retire from playing and start management work with Daugava, but he refused and continued playing. In 1969 when Daugava went on a tourney to England but the players were found carrying

contraband Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") refers to any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It is used for goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes o ...

money and many of them including Smirnovs and

Gunārs Ulmanis Gunārs Ulmanis (1938 – 17 July 2010) was a Latvian football right wing midfielder, one of the most famous Latvian footballers of the 1960s. Biography While at school Ulmanis played both basketball and football but the famous Latvian footbal ...

- the club veterans and leaders were disqualified. In 1971 his disqualification was lifted and Smirnovs played one more match for Daugava (and a couple of games with Zvejnieks Liepāja, but he himself recognized that he wasn't in a form good enough, so he retired from football for sure. Later Smirnovs returned to football as a manager with VEF Rīga which he brought to many successful seasons in the Latvian league - winning 5 titles and the two Latvian Cups. With VEF he worked from 1971 to 1992.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smirnovs, Georgijs Living people 1936 births Latvian men's footballers Men's association football forwards Soviet men's footballers Soviet Top League players FC Daugava Riga players Latvian football managers Soviet football managers Latvian sports coaches

Biography

See also

References