Gianfranco Zanirato

Gianfranco Zanirato (born July 20, 1943 ) is a former German football player who was active in the GDR Oberliga , the top division of GDR football, in the 1960s and 1970s . There he played for the SC Rotation Leipzig and the BSG activist Böhlen .

Athletic career

Gianfranco Zanirato started with organized football at the company sports association (BSG) activist Zwenkau . In 1961 he became GDR junior champion with the SC Rotation Leipzig. Two years later he was already playing in the East German league, in the second half of the 1962/63 season he was used as a left winger for SC Rotation in two games. Mainly he played in the reserve upper league during this time. For the season 1963/64, the Leipzig league football was reorganized. The league teams from Rotation and SC Lokomotive Leipzig were dissolved and assigned to the newly formed teams from SC Leipzig and BSG Chemie Leipzig . The supposedly best players came to SC Leipzig, including Gianfranco Zanirato. Before he was reinstated in the league, he had to do his military service in the National People's Army . There he was given the opportunity to continue playing football in the third-class city league of the East Berlin Army Sports Association (ASG) Vorwärts Berlin.

After his discharge from army service, Zanirato joined the BSG activist Böhlen at the beginning of the 1966/67 season, which had been promoted to the second-rate GDR league . He played all 30 point games and was the team's top scorer with eight goals. This did not manage to stay up, so Zanirato had to spend a season in the third division. After the immediate resurgence, he played with the Böhlenern, who called themselves BSG Chemie from 1968, nine more seasons in the GDR league. He was always a member of the team. In 1974 BSG Chemie was the first relay winner in the GDR league and took part in the promotion round to the upper league, but did not make it. Of the eight qualifying games, Zanirato played seven games and scored one goal. In 1977 Böhlen was again the season winner and this time was able to make the promotion round successful. Zanirato was again called up in seven promotion games, but without a goal. After fifteen years he played in the league again in 1977/78. As team captain and defender, he played all 26 point games, and on the 23rd matchday he scored his first league goal in the 7-1 away defeat at Dynamo Dresden with the only goal from Böhlen. The second goal he scored in the 1978/79 season, in which he completed 20 league games, but in the end was relegated back to the GDR league. After that, Gianfranco Zanirato ended his career as a football player in the nationwide game at the age of 36, in which he had come to 48 league games (2 goals) and 235 GDR league appearances (35 goals). He then worked as a coach, for example at Chemie Böhlen between 1982 and 1984, where he was in charge of the league team in 1982/83. Most recently he was the coach of lower-class teams in the Leipzig area (VfB Zwenkau, SV Regis-Breitingen) until 2011.

literature

• German sport echo : born 1961–1979. ISSN  0323-8628
• Hanns Leske : Encyclopedia of GDR football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-556-3 , p. 534.
• Andreas Baingo, Michael Horn: The History of the GDR Oberliga. 2nd Edition. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89533-428-6 , pp. 299, 330.

Web links

• Gianfranco Zanirato in the database of the German Football Association
• Gianfranco Zanirato in the database of weltfussball.de