Rolf Riner (24 April 1951 – 11 April 1988) was a Swiss

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 le ...

who played for

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, and ...

Servette Servette is a district of the city of Geneva, Switzerland. The district's name comes from the Latin word for forest, ''silva'', and means "little forest". Its name alludes to Servette's rural past, before Geneva grew beyond its walls and incorpora ...

and

CS Chênois Club Sportif Chênois is a Swiss association football club, playing in the Swiss 2. Liga Interregional. It plays in the municipality of Thônex. History Formed in 1907 as FC Thônex, the club adopted its current name in 1924. The club compete ...

during the 1970s and early 1950s. He played mainly in the position of striker, but also as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Football career

Riner played his youth football for

and advanced to their first team during the 1969/70 season. During his first season he played only one match and this was the

Cup of the Alps Coppa delle Alpi (translated as ''Cup of the Alps'') was a friendly football tournament, first organized by the Italian national league as it started in 1960 and then they were aided by the Swiss League from 1962, for the reason that the majorit ...

game against

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, ...

. The match was played on 9 June 1970 in the

St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in view of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several important matches, inc ...

and Riner scored the winning goal as Basel won 2–1. After a few further test games, Riner played his domestic league debut for the club in their 1970–71 season. It was the home game on 12 September 1970 as Basel won 3–0 against

Fribourg , neighboring_municipalities= Düdingen, Givisiez, Granges-Paccot, Marly, Pierrafortscha, Sankt Ursen, Tafers, Villars-sur-Glâne , twintowns = Rueil-Malmaison (France) , website = www.ville-fribourg.ch , Location of , Location of () () o ...

. He scored his first league goal for his club on 22 May 1971 in the home game against

Winterthur , neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell , twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria), La ...

. It was the fourth goal of the game as Basel won 5–0. Basel finished the regular season level on points with

Grasshopper Club Zürich Grasshopper Club Zürich, commonly referred to as simply GC, GCZ, or Grasshoppers, is a multisports club based in Zürich, Switzerland. The oldest and best known department of the club is its football team. With 27 titles, Grasshopper holds the ...

and so they contested a play-off game on 8 June 1971 to decide the title winners. Grasshopper won the play-off 4–3 after extra time. In the

1971–72 Nationalliga A Statistics of Swiss Super League in the 1971–72 season. Overview 14 teams contested in the 1971–72 Nationalliga A. These were the top 12 teams from the previous 1970–71 season and the two newly promoted teams St. Gallen and Grenchen. The c ...

Basel won the championship four points ahead of

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

and five ahead of the

Grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshop ...

. Riner played in the final of the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

, which was held on 22 May 1970 in the

Wankdorf Stadium The Wankdorf Stadium (german: Wankdorfstadion, ) was a football stadium in the Wankdorf quarter of Bern, Switzerland, and the former home of Swiss club BSC Young Boys. It was built in 1925, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted se ...

in Bern. But Basel were defeated 0–1 by

through a goal by

Daniel Jeandupeux Daniel Jeandupeux (born 7 February 1949) is a Swiss football manager and retired football forward. Career Born in Saint-Imier, Jeandupeux began playing football for FC La Chaux-de-Fonds. In 1972, he joined FC Zürich, where he would win two Swis ...

. The following season Basel again won the 1972–73 Nationalliga A championship, this time four points ahead of Grasshopper Club. In the Swiss Cup home game on 5 November 1972 Riner scored a

Hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

as Basel won 6–0 against Martigny-Sports. The cup-final was played on 23 April 1973 and again against

. The game ended goalless after 90 minutes. Riner was substituted in for the extra time. But Peter Marti (92) and

Fritz Künzli Friedrich "Fritz" Künzli (8 January 1946 – 22 December 2019) was a Swiss football player. From 1961 to 1979 he played in 313 matches in the Nationalliga A scoring a record 201 goals. In 1978, he played part of one season in the North American ...

(101) scored the goals to give Zürich the title for the second consecutive time in a final against Basel. Between the years 1969 and 1973 Riner played a total of 53 games for Basel scoring a total of 15 goals. 19 of these games were in the Nationalliga A, six in the

two in the

Swiss League Cup The Swiss League Cup was a football tournament which took place as a summer pre-season tournament in 1972 and 1973, and during the Swiss football season from 1974–75 to 1981–82. The tournament was a knockout competition contested by clubs fro ...

, five in the

and 21 were friendly games. He scored one goal in the domestic league, four in the Cup, one in the League Cup, one in the Cup of the Alps and eight others were scored during the test games. During the previous season Riner did not get as much playing time as he had expected, so to obtain more playing experience, he moved on to

before the 1973–74 Nationalliga A season. In the 1975–76 Nationalliga A season Servette were league runners-up. Also in the same season Servette reached the Swiss Cup final. But here they were defeated 0–1 by

. After three years Riner moved on to play for Chênois in the summer of 1976. With Chênois he played for five seasons in the top tier of Swiss football. But at the end of the

1980–81 Nationalliga A Statistics of Swiss Super League in the 1980–81 season. Overview It was contested by 14 teams, and FC Zürich won the championship. League standings Results Sources Switzerland 1980–81 at RSSSF {{DEFAULTSORT:1980-81 Nationalliga A ...

season the club was relegated. Riner stayed with the club and played his last three active football seasons in the Nationalliga B.

Honours

;Basel *

Swiss League The Swiss League is the second tier of the main professional ice hockey league in Switzerland, behind the National League. The winners of the league each season plays a best-of-seven series against the bottom team of the NL, and if they win, th ...

champions: 1971–72, 1972–73 * Swiss League runner-up: 1970–71 * Swiss Cup runner-up: 1971–72, 1972–73 *

winner:

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

;Servette * Swiss League runner-up: 1975–76 * Swiss Cup runner-up: 1975–76

References

Sources

* Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2017/2018. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. * Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riner, Rolf FC Basel players Servette FC players CS Chênois players Swiss men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Men's association football forwards 1951 births 1988 deaths