Laimonis Laizāns (born 30 January, 1945, died 16 November, 2020) was a former Soviet Latvian football

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 ...

who played for FK Daugava Rīga and

Torpedo Moscow Football Club Torpedo Moscow (russian: link=no, ФК "Торпедо" Москва, ''FK Torpedo Moskva''), known as Torpedo Moscow, is a Russian professional football club based in Moscow that was founded in 1924 and returned to the Russian Pr ...

. He is considered one of the best Latvian goalkeepers of all time.

Playing biography

Laizāns was still a school student when he was approached by famous Latvian football manager Vadims Ulbergs and offered him to start training in football. At first Laizāns played on field but he didn't have especial talents. That would change when for one game the team he played for had no goalkeeper and Laizāns was put in goal and since then he only played in goal, although he himself didn't like it at first because he wanted to score goals himself. As at that time most sportsmen in

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 ...

played both football and

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

until 1965 Laizāns played both and only then decided to devote his career entirely to football. After a couple of seasons with FK Daugava Rīga he got offers from several

Soviet Top League The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Higher League (russian: Чемпионат СССР по футболу: Высшая лига), served as the top division of Soviet Union football from 1936 until 1991. The professional top level ...

clubs. He chose to join

, the team of Valentin Ivanov and

Eduard Streltsov Eduard Anatolyevich Streltsov ( rus, Эдуа́рд Анато́льевич Стрельцо́в, p=ɨdʊˈart ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲitɕ strʲɪlʲˈtsof, a=Ru-Eduard Streltsov-yzavyalo.ogg; 21 July 1937 – 22 July 1990) was a Soviet footballer ...

. In the first season for Torpedo Laizāns played in 25 matches (succeeding 16 goals). But in winter while playing ice hockey Laizāns had an injury which crossed out his chances to remain in the top league, so Laizāns returned to Daugava. With Daugava he played until 1976. Afterwards he played a couple of years with FK Alfa in the Latvian championship.Miķelis Rubenis. History of Latvian football, 2000, pp. 109–111 (in Latvian)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laizans, Laimonis 1945 births Living people Latvian footballers Daugava Rīga players FC Torpedo Moscow players Association football goalkeepers