Ladislas Smid

Ladislas Smid (called Ladislas Siklo or short Siklo * 1. May 1915 in Budapest ; † 24. September 1990 ) was a French football player and later coach of Hungarian origin, the essential part of his career at RC Lens spent and four times for the French national team ran aground.

Club career

The 166 centimeter tall Smid grew up in his native Hungary and was 18 years old when he made his debut in the country's top football league for club Attila FC Miskolc in 1933. The player, who was called up both in midfield and occasionally in the storm , joined his team on a trip to France in 1934 and played a friendly against the local second division club RC Lens on October 7, 1934. Because the trip entailed unexpectedly high costs and the club was on the verge of financial collapse, it was given to Lens for a transfer fee of 13,000 francs , which the footballer immediately accepted against the background of the comparatively high earning potential in France.

At a time when substitutions and substitutions were not yet possible, the 19-year-old quickly established himself in the squad and received a regular position, which he defended in the following years. In 1937 he succeeded with Lens winning the second division championship and the associated promotion to the top division. He was one of the top performers of a team that was able to hold its own in the first division and even made it to seventh place in the table in 1939. On March 2 of the same year, Smid took French citizenship almost five years after his arrival in France. In the late summer of 1939 he saw the beginning of the Second World War , which led to the cessation of official game operations and only allowed Lens to participate in the unofficially continued staging of the championship. The player with the nickname "Siklo" was able to continue his career unlike many colleagues and was in the squad of Lens during the entire course of the war championships, where he succeeded in winning the northern group in 1943, the first title win in the first division. In the same year, the clubs were replaced by Équipes fédérales , with Smid remaining virtually loyal to his club with membership of the ÉF Lens-Artois . With this he was able to win the title in the north again in 1944 and was allowed to compete again in the jersey of the RC Lens club from the 1944/45 season.

When regular play was resumed in 1945, the then 30-year-old and his team were given the right to play in the again official first division and continued to be a regular player there. After he could not avert relegation back to the second division in 1947, the national player went into the second division. In 1949 he was second division champion for the second time and thus returned to the elite class of French football. However, he was largely ousted from the first team during the 1949/50 season and ended his active career in 1950 at the age of 35 after 117 first division matches with 12 goals, 134 second division matches with 24 goals and other unofficial first division matches in France and 12 first division matches with four goals in Hungary ; in the course of which he had played for Lens for 16 years.

Coaching career and later life

During his time as an active player, he was responsible for coaching the second team in Lens from 1942 to 1950. He then worked from 1950 to 1953 in the same position at the amateur club Stade Hénin .

As a sideline, he was the owner of a pub called “Siklo's Bar” in the late 1940s. At the time of his retirement in 1950 he was hired by a coal mining company and worked there until he retired in 1979. After that, the married but childless ex-professional lived in the rural community of Heilly until his death .

National team

After his naturalization in 1939, he was eligible to play for the French senior team. However, he had to wait for his debut until he was called up on April 8, 1945 at the age of 29 in a 0-1 defeat in a friendly against Switzerland. In the course of the year he was considered for further friendlies and played on December 15, 1945 in a 2-1 draw against Belgium, the last of four international matches, in which he remained without a goal.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ladislas Siklo - Fiche de stats du joueur de football , pari-et-gagne.com
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ladislas Smid complete profile ( memento from November 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), soccerdatabase.eu
3. ↑ SIKLO , sitercl.com
4. ↑ Joueur - Ladislas SMID , fff.fr