Ronalds Žagars (born 1950 in

Ventspils Ventspils (; german: Windau, ; see other names) is a state city in northwestern Latvia in the historical Courland region of Latvia, and is the sixth largest city in the country. At the beginning of 2020, Ventspils had a population of 33,906. It ...

) is a former

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

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 ...

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

who played for

Zvejnieks Liepāja Zvejnieks (Latvian orthography#Old orthography, Old orthography: ''Sweineek(s)''; feminine: Zvejniece) is a Latvian people, Latvian occupational surname, derived from the Latvian language, Latvian word for "fisherman". Individuals with the surname ...

and FK Daugava Rīga.

Playing biography

Žagars was a tall and powerful goalkeeper. He first played in

Liepāja Liepāja (; liv, Līepõ; see #Names and toponymy, other names) is a state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest-city in the Kurzeme Planning Region, Kurzeme Region and the third-largest city in the country after R ...

but was offered to join Daugava Rīga in the first Soviet league. in 1969. Over the first two seasons with Daugava he played only 12 matches and had to return to

. In 1974, he was invited to Daugava again for the best season of his career – he played almost half of the team's matches (23) and had nearly the same amount of time in goal as his more famous colleague

Laimonis Laizāns Laimonis Laizāns (born 30 January, 1945, died 16 November, 2020) was a former Soviet Latvian football goalkeeper who played for FK Daugava Rīga and Torpedo Moscow. He is considered one of the best Latvian goalkeepers of all time. Playing biog ...

. But in the next 3 seasons he never played more than 10 matches and had to sit on the bench behind

Aleksandrs Kulakovs Aleksandrs Kulakovs (born 4 March 1956 in Dedinovo) is a former Latvian football goalkeeper who played for the biggest part of his career for Daugava Rīga. At the age of 15 Kulakovs was the first goalkeeper for Spartak Lukhovitsy. After hav ...

. In 1977 at the age of 27 Žagars left Daugava and joined

Enerģija Rīga FK Apgaismes tehnika (also known as ESR Rīga and Enerģija Rīga) was a Soviet Latvian football club from Riga, a four-time winner of the Latvian league. It went bankrupt together with the factory that supported it in the early 1990s. Histo ...

with which he won the Latvian league in 1977.

References

1950 births Living people People from Ventspils Latvian footballers Daugava Rīga players FK Liepājas Metalurgs players Association football goalkeepers {{Latvia-footy-bio-stub