Ricardo Juan Antonio Saprissa Aymá (24 June 1901 – 16 August 1990) was a lifelong athlete, coach, and promoter of sports. After being raised in El Salvador, he spent many years in

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

, playing and coaching

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

. In 1935 he was co-founder of

Deportivo Saprissa Deportivo Saprissa is a Costa Rican sports club, mostly known for its Association football, football team. The club is based in San Juan de Tibás, San José, Costa Rica, San José, and play their home games at the Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Aym ...

, a highly successful football team based in San Juan de Tibás. He also represented Spain 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 ...

Early life

Born in El Salvador to Spanish parents,RCD Espanyol rinde homenaje a la presidencia honorífica de Ricardo Saprissa
- Nación Saprissa moved to

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(his mother's home town) as a small child but returned to El Salvador aged 10 after the death of his father. After completing his studies in

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

, he returned to Spain in 1922 to play soccer.

Sporting career as a player

He played several sports, excelling at football as well as in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

and

polo Polo is a stick and ball game that is played on horseback as a traditional field sport. It is one of the world's oldest known team sports, having been adopted in the Western world from the game of Chovgan (), which originated in ancient ...

. He joined the football club

RCD Espanyol Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as RCD Espanyol, is a Spanish professional sports club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The club competes in La Liga, the top tier of Spa ...

, and won the national cup competition (

Copa del Rey The , commonly known as , or (in English) the Spanish Cup or King's Cup, and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–1936) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–1976), is an annual knockout football competition in Spanis ...

) with the club in

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

(along with the

Catalan football championship The Catalan football championship ''(Campionat de Catalunya)'' was a football competition in Catalonia and the first football league in Spain before La Liga was established in 1929. In December 1900, Alfons Macaya, the president of Hispania AC, o ...

in the same season). That made him the first Salvadorean soccer player to play professionally in Spain, and the only Salvadorean player to win a Copa del Rey. He also won Spain's field hockey national championship in 1924 and the national tennis doubles championship in 1923 and 1924. Since El Salvador did not participate in the Paris Summer Olympic Games in 1924, he represented Spain in men's and mixed doubles tennis and was on the Spanish team in the equivalent of the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

. He moved to San José, Costa Rica, in 1932.

Costa Rica and Deportivo Saprissa

Saprissa became the coach and president of the local football team, Orión, guiding them to a championship in 1938. He coached Costa Rica's national football team, winning the silver medal at the 1935 and 1938

Central American and Caribbean Games The Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC or CACGs) are a multi-sport regional championship event, held quadrennial (once every four years), typically in the middle (even) year between Summer Olympics. The games are for 32 countries and ...

, and in the 1951

Pan American Games The Pan American Games, known as the Pan Am Games, is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas. It features thousands of athletes participating in competitions to win different summer sports. It is held among athletes from nations of th ...

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. Later that decade, Roberto Fernández started a boys football team, with children from all over San José. He asked Saprissa if he could supply the player's uniforms. He did, and the team became known as

. The team successfully competed in local tournaments. As the young players started to grow, the team began to compete in higher categories. They reached Costa Rica's First Division in 1949, and have since won more national and international tournaments than any other Costa Rican team. They represented

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

at the

2005 FIFA Club World Championship The 2005 FIFA Club World Championship (officially known as the FIFA Club World Championship Toyota Cup Japan 2005 for sponsorship reasons) was the second FIFA Club World Championship, a football competition organised by FIFA for the champion clu ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in December 2005, winning third place in the tournament. Saprissa was the president of Deportivo Saprissa from 1948 to 1981. In 1972, one of his dreams was realised when the team became the first in Costa Rica to have its own

stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

, which was named after him.

Death and legacy

Don Ricardo Saprissa died in

Alajuela Alajuela () is a district in the Alajuela (canton), Alajuela canton of the Alajuela Province of Costa Rica. As the seat of the Municipality of Alajuela canton, it is awarded the status of city. By virtue of being the city of the first canton of ...

in August 1990. Among his distinctions, Saprissa was included in Costa Rica's Sports Gallery in 1969 and was named honorary president of Barcelona's

Espanyol Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as RCD Espanyol, is a Spanish professional sports club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The club competes in La Liga, the top tier of Spa ...

, Costa Rica's Orion, Gimnástica Española in Spain, and rival soccer team

Alajuelense Liga Deportiva Alajuelense (LDA, ), commonly known as Alajuelense and nicknamed La Liga (), is a Costa Rican multisport club based in the borough of El Llano, Alajuela, Alajuela province. Although they compete in a number of different sports, Al ...

in Costa Rica. The

Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Aymá Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Aymá is a football stadium in San Juan de Tibás, with a seating capacity of 23,112, making it the second-largest stadium in the country. The stadium is the home of Deportivo Saprissa, and was named in honor of the team ...

in San José is named for him.

References

External links

*
Don Ricardo Saprissa
- Deportivo Saprissa
RICARDO SAPRISSA AYMÁ
- Hall of Fame: Jugadores del RCD Espanyol {{DEFAULTSORT:Saprissa, Ricardo 1901 births 1990 deaths Sportspeople from San Salvador Men's association football defenders Salvadoran men's footballers Costa Rican men's footballers Spanish men's footballers RCD Espanyol footballers La Liga players Spanish male tennis players Olympic tennis players for Spain Tennis players at the 1924 Summer Olympics Costa Rican football managers Costa Rica national football team managers Spanish emigrants to Costa Rica Spanish people of Salvadoran descent Salvadoran people of Spanish descent Salvadoran emigrants to Costa Rica Costa Rican people of Salvadoran descent Footballers from Catalonia Spanish football managers Spanish male field hockey players Field hockey players from Catalonia Sportspeople from Barcelona Salvadoran football managers Catalonia men's international footballers Central American and Caribbean Games medalists in tennis Central American and Caribbean Games silver medalists for Costa Rica Costa Rican male tennis players 20th-century Spanish sportsmen