Miervaldis Drāznieks was a
Latvian
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
, one of the all-time best goalscorers in the Latvian league.
Almost for the entire his career Drāznieks played in
Liepāja
Liepāja (; liv, Līepõ; see other names) is a state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest-city in the Kurzeme Region and the third-largest city in the country after Riga and Daugavpils. It is an important ice-f ...
scoring 160 goals in the Latvian league. In his first match in the Latvian league in 1947 Drāznieks scored four goals. With
Liepājas Metalurgs he won the
Latvian league 8 times, the
Latvian Cup
The Latvian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Latvian football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Game Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due to the sponsorship by sports betting company Wil ...
– 5 times. In 1955 Drāznieks played with
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 ...
in the 1st Soviet league and scored 4 goals.
Together with
Ernests Ziņģis Drāznieks was one of the best forwards in the post-war Liepāja. Still with all his 160 goals Drāznieks was known as a waster of good scoring opportunities – he had a great ability to be in the right place to score goals but lacked speed and very often missed superb scoring chances. Drāznieks retired from football in 1960.
Both ovations and boos
(in Latvian)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Draznieks, Miervaldis
Latvian footballers
Daugava Rīga players
Possibly living people
Year of birth missing
Association footballers not categorized by position