Imre GARABA

Born in Vac in Hungary in 1958, Imre Garaba started his professional career there, naturally enough, in 1976. For three seasons, he impressed an excellent central defender. This enabled him to be scouted by Honved Budapest, the country's leading team, who signed him in 1979. Whilst with Honved, he picked up numerous titles, and was a quadruple winner of the Hungarian championship title, playing 224 games, and scoring 13 goals for the club between 1979 and 1987. This experienced international defender played six matches over two World Cup Finals tournaments in 1982 and 1986 and went on to obtain 82 caps, scoring three goals for the national team, making him one of the most-capped players in the history of the Hungarian national team; He was even voted Hungary's Player of the Year in 1982. In 1987, aged 29, he decided to leave Hungary for France where he joined Stade Rennais FC, for whom he was a key transfer target. At the time, Rennes were in the Second Division, and in the process of being completely rebuilt with the goal of achieving promotion back to the top flight. Imre Garaba was logically a first choice player, playing 35 matches, scoring 4 goals in his first season, but it was to be a disappointing season for the team as a whole, finishing in a mere 10th place, inspite of the good performances of their international signing. The second season was much more satisfying, finishing the season in 3rd, just missing out on promotion. In his last season with Rennes he made 44 appearances and found the net on four occasions. He then left Stade Rennais in 1989, having been unable to fulfil his mission of helping to get Rennes promoted. In the end he left France to join Charleroi ni Belgium where he would go on to make 55 appearances over 3 seasons. In 1992, he returned to Hungary for a final challenge in his playing career in Budapest. He then went on to become manager at four different clubs in his country between 1993 and 1996.