Mihai Tänzer () (7 February 1905 – 22 September 1993) was a

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

footballer of

Danube Swabian The Danube Swabians ( ) is a collective term for the ethnic German-speaking population who lived in the Kingdom of Hungary in east-central Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in greater numbers in the 17 ...

(

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

) ethnicity, he also had Hungarian citizenship when he played in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Club career

In the early 1920s, Timișoara " Chinezul" dominated the Romanian football scene, even winning against important teams from the rest of Europe. Mihai Tänzer made his first senior appearance, at the age of 16, on the first team of the club, which already had 83 players. He soon found his place among the stalwarts as Ritter, Hoksary, Steiner, Wetzer, Semler and

Vogl VOGL is a debugger for the OpenGL rendering API intended to be used in the development of video games. VOGL was originally written at RAD Game Tools and Valve. VOGL is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the MIT License. Desc ...

. A midfielder, in a few years he became one of the best European players in this position. ''Chinezul'' was among the top teams of that time, alongside Juventus Bucharest, Venus Bucharest, CAO Oradea, Rapid Bucharest, C.A.T. Timișoara and

AMEF Arad Vagonul Arad was a football club based in Arad, Romania. It was founded in 1911 and it soon became one of the best teams from Arad. It was affiliated to Astra Arad rail equipment manufacturing company. It was dissolved in 2006. History 191 ...

. During 1922–1927, "Chinezul", with Tänzer on the team, brought six consecutive national titles to

Timișoara Timișoara (, , ; , also or ; ; ; see #Etymology, other names) is the capital city of Timiș County, Banat, and the main economic, social and cultural center in Western Romania. Located on the Bega (Tisza), Bega River, Timișoara is consider ...

. At the end of 1929, he arrived at

Ferencváros Ferencváros (, ) is the 9th district of Budapest (), Hungary. Name The southern suburb of Pest was named after King Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, Francis I on 4 December 1792 when he was crowned king of Hungary. History The developmen ...

, the most popular Hungarian club at that time, and was known there as ''Táncos Mihály''. He played there for over a decade, winning three national titles, two cups, and one Mitropa Cup as well. At the 1938

Mitropa Cup The Mitropa Cup, officially called Coupe de l'Europe Centrale, Mitteleuropäischer Pokal or Central European Cup, was one of the first international major European association football, football cups for club sides. It was conducted among the suc ...

, he faced Ripensia, another powerhouse team from Timișoara, which in the late 1930s won four national titles in Romania. Tänzer scored a goal against them in the last minutes, bringing Ferencváros a close 5–4 victory. After a year he went to play for Ripensia Timișoara, finishing his club career, and later ended up coaching them.

International career

Tänzer made his debut for

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

on 2 September 1923 in a match against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

ended 1–1. He represented his country at the

1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad () and officially branded as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The opening ceremony was held on 5 July, but some competitions had al ...

in Paris, he got 10 caps for Romania between 1923 and 1929 and scored once. In 1929, he went to play for neighbouring

Players Appearing for Two or More Countries
as "Táncos Mihály", and earned five caps scoring a goal. Never giving up his Romanian citizenship, afterwards Táncos became Tänzer once again, returning to Romania and living the rest of his life in

Cluj Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...

Honours

Chinezul Timișoara *

Liga I Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1 and officially known as SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Romania and the highest level of the Romanian football league system. Contested by 1 ...

: 6 **1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927 Ferencváros TC *

Hungarian League Hungarian may refer to: * Hungary, a country in Central Europe * Kingdom of Hungary, state of Hungary, existing between 1000 and 1946 * Hungarians/Magyars, ethnic groups in Hungary * Hungarian algorithm, a polynomial time algorithm for solving the ...

: 3 **1932, 1934, 1938 *

Magyar Kupa The Hungarian Cup (, ), officially known as MOL Magyar Kupa for sponsorship reasons, is the Hungarian cup competition for football clubs. It was started by the Hungarian Football Association'','' in 1909, eight years after the commencement of ...

: 2 **1933, 1935 *

: 1 **1937

References

External links

Mihai Tänzer
at RSSSF

at Sports Reference {{DEFAULTSORT:Tanzer, Mihai 1905 births 1993 deaths Footballers from Timișoara Danube-Swabian people Romanian men's footballers Romania men's international footballers Hungarian men's footballers Hungary men's international footballers Footballers at the 1924 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Romania Chinezul Timișoara players Ferencvárosi TC footballers FC Ripensia Timișoara players Dual internationalists (men's football) Liga I players Nemzeti Bajnokság I players Romanian people of German descent Hungarian people of German descent Men's association football midfielders 20th-century Romanian sportsmen 20th-century Hungarian sportsmen