Vladimirs Bērziņš

Vladimirs Bērziņš (December 16, 1905 - ?) was a Latvian football midfielder and manager, one of the most capped footballers in pre-war Latvia.

Biography

Bērziņš began playing football with the mostly German sports club Union Riga in 1925. He was selected to play for the Latvia national football team for the August 26, 1925 friendly match against Estonia [ [http://www.periodika.lv/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_LATVIAARCHL&Type=text/html&Locale=latvian-skin-custom&Path=LAK/1925/08/15&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar00300&PageLabel=3 Why did our footballers lose?] ] , but later he was removed from the list of selected players.

At the end of the 1926 football season Bērziņš left Union for the three time champion of Latvia RFK. For this side he played for the rest of his football career. With RFK he won the Latvian Higher League title four times - in 1930, 1931, 1934 and 1935. In the second half of the 1930s Bērziņš played very little with RFK and retired from playing in 1939. He did however return to RFK in 1943. In total Bērziņš played 40 international matches for Latvia from 1927 to 1936, being the fourth most capped Latvian football international behind Ēriks Pētersons, Jānis Lidmanis and Alberts Šeibelis [Miķelis Rubenis - History of Latvian football] .

After World War II Bērziņš ended up in Germany where he coached the local football club in FC Gundelfingen in 1946. Another former Latvian international Harijs Lazdiņš played in goal of the Gundelfingen club [ [http://www.fcgundelfingen.de/Chronik/der_neuaufbau.htm Der Neuaufbau und die Zeit der Pokaltriumphe] ] .

In later years Bērziņš settled in Canada.

References