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Aurel Guga

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Aurel Guga
Personal information
Date of birth (1898-08-10)10 August 1898[1]
Place of birth Temeskubin, Austria-Hungary[2]
Date of death 7 November 1936(1936-11-07) (aged 38)
Place of death Timișoara, Romania[2]
Position(s) Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1919–1920 Vulturii Lugoj
1920–1925 Universitatea Cluj
1925 Gloria CFR Arad
1926–1927 UCAS Petroşani
1927–1929 Jiul Lupeni
1929–1930 Universitatea Cluj
International career
1922–1928 Romania 12 (4)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Aurel Guga (10 August 1898 – 7 November 1936) was a Romanian football player. Regarded as one of the most talented and versatile players of the early 1920s, Guga was the first captain of the Romania football team.[3] He was also part of Romania's squad for the football tournament at the 1924 Summer Olympics.[4]

Early life

Born in Temeskubin (Cuvin) in what is now Serbia on 10 August 1898,[1] with other sources claiming that he was born in 1900,[3] Guga finished high school in Oravița, before moving to Lugoj.[3] Because of World War I he could not start playing football until 1919, when he was 21. He started at the local club, Vulturii Lugoj, but stayed only one year because he wanted to apply for the Commercial Academy from Cluj.[3]

Career

After his arrival in Cluj, he joined U Cluj, a club formed one year earlier by the "Sports Society of University Students". At the time, he only played with his team in local competitions since there was not any football championship at a national level. In January 1922, a Viennese newspaper dedicated a full-page article to him, calling him "an exceptional forward player".[3]

Sometime in October or November 1923, U Cluj got to play its first tournament abroad, at the invitation of the Grenoble municipality for the opening of their new stadium.[3] U Cluj first played in Lyon, with a local team, managing to win with 5–2; Aurel Guga scored three times. The next day, the French press wrote that "he is a world-class player".[3] Since there were rumors at the times about a friendly between the England national team and a team of selected players from the continent, Guga was proposed by the French to play for Europe.[3] In Grenoble, U Cluj beat the French, winning with 3–0, with Guga scoring twice.[3]

After he graduated from college in 1925, the press wrote that "the excellent international Romanian player will settle in Timișoara, very likely signing with one of the local teams."[5] However, there are no official documents to confirm that he actually played for Timișoara. Instead, in November, he started playing for Gloria CFR Arad, helping his team finishing second in the Regional Championship.[6] Sometime in March 1926, he joined UCAS Petroşani,[7] the vice-champion team at the time, but retired from all the competitions that season. From 1927 he had a two-year spell in Lupeni, playing for local Jiul, and in 1929, he returned in Cluj, to play for the last time for the club that made him famous.[3] In 1930, he was officially retired.

On 8 November 1936, Gazeta Sporturilor reported that the day before, Guga was involved in a car accident. He lost control of his car, fell into the Bega Channel, and drowned.[8]

As Ioan Chirilă recalls in his book:

Guga was one of the finest players our land ever gave. And maybe the most complete. And the most modern.[9]

International career

Aurel Guga captained the first official match of the Romania national team in the 1922 King Alexander's Cup, against Yugoslavia, a match won by the Romanian team with Guga scoring the winning goal.[3][10] He played six years for Romania, managing twelve caps and four goals.[11] He also captained nine out of twelve matches.

Scores and results table. Romania's goal tally first:[12]
International appearances and goals
App Date Venue Opponent Result Goal Competition
1. 8 June 1922 Belgrade, Yugoslavia  Yugoslavia 2–1 1 Friendly
2. 3 September 1922 Chernivtsi, Romania  Poland 1–1 0 Friendly
3. 1 July 1923 Cluj, Romania  Czechoslovakia 0–6 0 Friendly
4. 2 September 1923 Lviv, Poland  Poland 1–1 1 Friendly
5. 20 May 1924 Vienna, Austria  Austria 1–4 0 Friendly
6. 27 May 1924 Paris, France  Netherlands 0–6 0 1924 Summer Olympics
7. 31 May 1925 Sofia, Bulgaria  Bulgaria 4–2 0 Friendly
8. 25 April 1926 Bucharest, Romania  Bulgaria 6–1 1 Friendly
9. 3 October 1926 Zagreb, Yugoslavia  Yugoslavia 3–2 1 King Alexandru's Cup
10. 10 May 1927 Bucharest, Romania  Yugoslavia 0–3 0 King Alexandru's Cup
11. 19 June 1927 Bucharest, Romania  Poland 3–3 0 Friendly
12. 15 April 1928 Arad, Romania  Turkey 4–2 0 Friendly

Death

He died on 7 November 1936 at age 38, while driving his car in Timișoara and falling in the Bega river, where he drowned.[13][14][15]

References

  1. ^ a b "Aurel Guga, FIFA Profile". FIFA. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
  2. ^ a b Aurel Guga. sports-reference.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "O singura data in trei secole" (in Romanian). Gazeta Sporturilor. 28 March 2011. Archived from the original on 17 August 2011.
  4. ^ "Aurel Guga". Olympedia. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  5. ^ Gazeta Sporturilor (13 June 1925), p.1
  6. ^ "Arad – Categoria I-a", Gazeta Sporturilor (19 November 1925), p.3
  7. ^ "Romania – Bulgaria", Gazeta Sporturilor (April 1926), p.3
  8. ^ "A murit internaționalul Guga", Gazeta Sporturilor (8 November 1936), p.1
  9. ^ "Legendele Universitatii" (in Romanian). Universitatea Cluj. 12 July 2007. Archived from the original on 31 March 2012.
  10. ^ "8 iunie 1922. Primul meci din istoria nationalei de fotbal" [8 June 1922. The first match in the history of the national football team] (in Romanian). A1.ro. 8 June 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  11. ^ "Aurel Guga, FRF Profile". FRF. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
  12. ^ "Aurel Guga". European Football. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  13. ^ "Şi ei au făcut-o lată în trafic!" [They also made it wide in traffic!] (in Romanian). libertatea.ro. 14 January 2012. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  14. ^ "Accidentele rutiere au făcut victime şi în sportul românesc! Maria Cioncan, Ibrahim Dossey sau Cezar Dinu s-au stins la volan" [Road accidents have made victims in Romanian sport too! Maria Cioncan, Ibrahim Dossey or Cezar Dinu have gone behind the wheel] (in Romanian). fanatik.ro. 1 June 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  15. ^ "Elemer Hirsch, aristocratul care s-a stins în iarbă" [Elemer Hirsch, the aristocrat who passed away on the grass] (in Romanian). Gsp.ro. 23 March 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
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