Sauveur Rodriguez
Sauveur Rodriguez (born October 17, 1920 in Sidi bel Abbès , † February 15, 2013 in Nice ) was a French football player and coach .
Club career
The 180 centimeter tall defender Rodriguez, who grew up in French-occupied Algeria, was already considered a talent with extraordinary abilities , according to the sports magazine Miroir Sprint . He played for an amateur club from Sidi bel Abbès until he had to do his military service as a young adult in 1942. Meanwhile, he played in the shirt of the capital city club Stade Français , even if there were no official championships due to the Second World War and the German occupation. He then returned to Algeria for some time and played for FC Blida before moving to the first division Olympique Marseille in metropolitan France in 1946 . For Marseille he made his debut on August 18, 1946 in a 1: 4 defeat against his former club Stade Français in the top national league and thus reached his debut in professional football . From then on he fought for a regular place in the central defense of the southern French and was able to maintain this for the following years. He was an integral part of a team that won the national championship in 1948. Even if the team was unable to build on these successes afterwards, he remained loyal to Marseille until he turned his back on the city and its club in 1951 after five years and signed with league rivals Olympique Lyon .
The promoted Lyon offered him a secure regular place in the course of the 1951/52 season, but Rodriguez had to fight against relegation with this. This was unsuccessful, so that in 1952 the club had to go into the second division with a clear gap to the non-relegation places, which Rodriguez was able to avoid personally by signing the first division club SO Montpellier . However, he experienced the same again in Montpellier and was an integral part of a team that was relegated in 1953 as bottom of the table. At that time, the then 32-year-old ended his professional career with eight goals after 209 top division games.
After his time as a professional, he remained loyal to football and took over the role of coach at an amateur club from Ain Temouchent in Algeria in 1953. With the end of the Algerian War and the withdrawal of the French in 1962, Rodriguez also returned to the motherland and as a player wore the jersey of a club called CO Berre . He was then again a player-coach for a team from Nice from 1968 on, before moving to AS Villefranche in 1971 . With this he was also player-coach until he finally gave up playing as an amateur in 1952 in the year of his 52nd birthday. He ran a brasserie in Nice for a while .
National team
Rodriguez was 26 years old when he made his debut wearing the jersey of the French national team on May 26, 1947 in a 4-0 friendly win against the Netherlands . This was the only game he was allowed to play for his country.
Individual evidence
- ^ Sauveur Rodriguez - Fiche de stats du joueur de football , pari-et-gagne.com
- ↑ Sauveur RODRIGUEZ , omstatsclub.com
- ^ Sauveur Rodriguez complete profile , soccerdatabase.eu
- ^ Marseille - Décès à 92 ans du doyen des joueurs de l'OM , leparisien.fr
- ↑ Joueur - Sauveur RODRIGUEZ , fff.fr
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rodriguez, Sauveur |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French soccer player and coach |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th October 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sidi bel Abbès , Algeria |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 15, 2013 |
| Place of death | Nice , France |