Ronalds Žagars (born 1950 in

Ventspils Ventspils () 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 situated on the Venta River and ...

) is a former

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), 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 i ...

who played for

Zvejnieks Liepāja Zvejnieks ( Old orthography: ''Sweineek(s)''; feminine: Zvejniece) is a Latvian occupational surname, derived from the Latvian word for "fisherman". Individuals with the surname include: *Kristaps Zvejnieks (born 1992), an Alpine ski racer and ...

and FK Daugava Rīga.

Playing biography

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

Liepāja Liepāja () (formerly: Libau) is a Administrative divisions of Latvia, state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest city in the Courland region and the third-largest in the country after Riga and Daugavpils. It is an ...

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 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 biography La ...

. 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 havi ...

. In 1977 at the age of 27 Žagars left Daugava and joined Enerģija Rīga with which he won the Latvian league in 1977.

References

1950 births Living people Sportspeople from Ventspils Latvian men's footballers FC Daugava Riga players FK Liepājas Metalurgs players Men's association football goalkeepers Soviet men's footballers {{Latvia-footy-bio-stub