Let’s talk about 5 foreign Cypriot nationals
International break! Yes!
Time to break out the foukou, get the Hadjiyanni CDs out and tell people that George Michael, Peter Andre and Cat Stevens are all from Cyprus.
“Re! Where did you put the shieftalia?!”
I had some ideas for what my first article would be regarding the Cypriot national team, which include looking in detail why nationalist sentiment (and the crowd trouble that goes with it) does not necessarily follow the team about like other Eastern European nations, but I thought I would look at something a little light-hearted first, and leave the heavy reading to be done… I don’t know… During the World Cup?
JOKE AND IMAGE REMOVED
Instead, I want to celebrate Valentin Roberge making his international debut and take a look at some players that took such a liking to living in Cyprus (and stayed long enough to get that sweet, sweet EU passport) that they decided on representing the country at international level. Except in most cases, they already had a European passport.
Sinisa Gogic
Gogić is considered a legend at APOEL, Anorthosis and Olympiakos (the good one) for his goalscoring, assisting and generally being very good.
He left what was Yugoslavia at the time in 1989 and signed for APOEL where he won two championships and the cup. He left the club in 1993 following a split with the coach at the time. He had scored 61 goals in 95 games.
He then joined Anorthosis where he stayed until 1997 where scored 60 goals in 78 games and got hold of two more league titles. And that’s where he had qualified to become Cypriot as he had spent more than 5 consecutive years in Cyprus.
In September 1994 he took part in his first game for Cyprus, at the tender age of 31 against Spain, where Cyprus lost 2-1. A Spain team that included one Pep Guardiola.
Gogic warming up before his first international cap.
(Photo by Filipe Leme: https://www.pexels.com/photo/toddler-playing-with-a-balloon-2438547/ )
His first goal for Cyprus came in a 4-3 friendly defeat to Israel in Jerusalem. Altogether he took part in 37 games and scored 8 goals, including scoring in a famous 3-2 victory for the national team against Spain in September 1998. A Spain team that included Fernando Morientes, Raul, Michel Salgado, Fernando Hiero and Luis Enrique. The qualification for Euro 2000 was one of the most successful campaigns for the national team, missing out on the play-offs by 1 point. They were also the only team to beat Spain in the qualification.
His last game with Cyprus came in 1999 vs Austria which ended in a 3-1 defeat.
Gogić left Anorthosis in 1997 at the age of 33, to sign for Olympiakos, where he stayed for four years scoring 27 goals in 82 games. He won the title in Greece in all four seasons he was there, and managed to get involved in the team’s Champions League escapades, reaching the quarter finals in 1999. His nickname with the fans was “pappou” (Grandad).
In 2000 he rejoined APOEL and in the two years he stayed with them he scored 24 goals in 51 games and won another league title. He finished his playing career in 2002 playing 6 games for Olympiakos Nicosia and scoring 2 goals. He was 39 years old.
His son Alex plies his trade in Scotland, playing for Hamilton, Hibs and St Mirren , and has also gone on to play for the Cypriot national team 12 times at the time of writing the article.
Let’s not talk about Gogić Sr’s managerial career.
Milenko Spoljaric
But let’s talk about that Spain game again. One of the other scorers for Cyprus? Špoljarić. Another Yugoslavian player who moved to Cyprus in 1992, to play for Apollon Limassol. He stayed with Apollon until 2003, scoring 78 goals from 250 games, which is not too bad for a striker. Better for a midfielder though, which he was. He then signed for one last season to play with AEP Pafos playing 23 times.
He played his first game for the national team in October of 1997 in a World Cup Qualifier against Luxembourg, where he also scored. He played 21 times for Cyprus scoring 8 goals and was another very important player for that Euro 2000 qualifier team. Another player who made his debut for the team in his 30s.
Špoljarić warming up before his first international cap.
(Photo by Filipe Leme: https://www.pexels.com/photo/toddler-playing-with-a-balloon-2438547/ )
Špoljarić Sr has also gone down the way of Gogić Sr, except he’s gone one better. Maybe two. Matija Špoljarić is the most successful of his offspring, starting his career off at Atletico Madrid, before going to Apollon, AEK Larnaca, Alki and finally now at Aris Limassol. He also has 13 appearances for Cyprus. Danilo is currently with Apollon and has been on loan to ENP and Zemplín Michalovce in Slovakia. He has also appeared for Cyprus once so far. Alexander hasn’t had as much success as his brothers.
Alexander being strangled by Matija here
As a manager, Špoljarić Sr’s career lasted all of 19 months.
Rainer Rauffmann
But it was in Cyprus where he had the best time. His scoring record is the stuff of legend: 192 goals in 153 games. He scored 42 times in his first season which would have made him the European Golden Boot winner, except for the weighting they give players from the top leagues. With Omonia he won the championship twice, and the cup once.
Rauffmann qualified to play for Cyprus when he was 35 years old.
Repetition is funny!
(Photo by Filipe Leme: https://www.pexels.com/photo/toddler-playing-with-a-balloon-2438547/ )
Naturally he only played 5 times for the national team between 2002 and 2003. In those 5 matches he scored 3 goals, against Israel, Slovakia and Malta. The man was a goal machine, it just took him to be a pensioner to get going.
But the change of nationality for Rauffmann wasn’t only a sporting one. Rauffmann married a Cypriot, Maria, and baptised himself a Greek Orthodox, taking the name Markos.
Rauffmann has spent most of his non-playing career as a scout for Omonia and running a wedding dress shop with his wife, although he did have a go at managing for half a season, taking over at Olympiakos Nicosia for a few months in 2005.
Vincent Laban
Laban began his career in his native France, turning out for the Nantes reserve team on a regular basis over the span of 4 years. Following his release from Nantes, he signed for Digenis Morphou in 2005 as a 21 year old. At the time Digenis were struggling to stay afloat in the championship and Laban was one of the catalysts in keeping their head above water. He played 42 times scoring 8 goals for them.
Soon, one of the bigger teams came sniffing, and Laban signed for Anorthosis in 2007 and stayed with them until 2013. In that time he played 192 times and scored 19 goals. Laban was one of the standout players as TImur Ketsbaia’s team was unbeaten in the 2007-08 season, and again for the team that was the first Cypriot team to qualify for the Champions League group stages in 2008-09.
In 2012, after spending 7 years in Cyprus, Laban chose to get Cypriot citizenship and with that, was able to represent Cyprus. He made his debut in August 2012, playing in a friendly against Bulgaria.
Laban went on to play 36 times for the national team scoring 3 goals. Knowing his outsider nature to the national team, he tried to integrate himself with the team and get the fans on side by learning the national anthem and belting it out for all to hear. Too bad performances from the team at this time as a whole were not very motivating for the fans.
Anorthosis struggled to keep their finances in check, and Laban was one of the players released in 2013, when he signed for Astra Giurgiu in Romania where he played 70 times. He returned to Cyprus in 2015, playing for AEK Larnaka until 2019, joined Ethnikos Achnas for a year and then returned to his native France in 2020 where he has been playing for Aviron Bayonnais ever since.
He is now 38.
He should go back to Cyprus and Rauffmann it.
Dossa Junior
Dossa was born in Portugal and started his career with local team Immortal, where he lasted only a year, before signing up with Digenis (there they are again) in 2006.
He lasted a season before he was snapped up by AEP Pafos, which only managed to keep hold of him for two years this time, before he headed to AEL Limassol. In 2011-12, AEL won the championship for the first time in 40 years, with Dossa leading the defensive line. 2012 was an important year for Dossa, as it meant that he was in the country for the requisite amount of time for him to gain Cypriot nationality, which he rushed to get.
He also had his first cap in that friendly defeat vs Bulgaria. He went on to have 24 caps for the national team and scored a goal.
In 2013 Dossa left AEL and headed off to Poland where he played for Legia Warsaw where he won the Ekstraklasa in 2013-14 and the Polish Cup in 2014-15. Then came his next club.
Konyaspor.
In Turkey.
He lasted a season in Turkey. Then he returned home to AEL where he ended his career in 2020.
Special Mentions
There are also a couple of special mentions for Helio Pinto and Nuno Morais who played mostly for APOEL and would have qualified to play for Cyprus with the new FIFA rules in place, however were unable to when they were playing, as they had youth caps for Portugal.
Helio Pinto went through the full process of getting Cypriot nationality and married in Cyprus with Dossa Junior’s sister.
Nuno Morais was Jose Mourinho’s first signing at Chelsea. It did not go well. Subsequently Morais spent 12 years at APOEL making 347 league appearances and 524 appearances overall, making him APOEL’s highest appearance maker of all time.
Man’s more Cypriot than I am. And Peter Andre.
