Félix Balyu
Belgian footballer (1891–1971)
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Félix Charles Louis Balyu (5 August 1891 – 15 January 1971) was a Belgian footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Club Brugge and US Tourquennoise. He represented the Belgium national team at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, where they won a gold medal.[1][2]
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 5 August 1891 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Liège, Belgium | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 15 January 1971 (aged 79) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Liège, Belgium | ||||||||||||||||
| Position | Goalkeeper | ||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1908–1910 | Club Brugge | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1911–1923 | Club Brugge | ||||||||||||||||
| 1923–1925 | FC Rouen | ||||||||||||||||
| 1925–1930 | US Tourquennoise | ||||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1916 | Belgium (unofficial) | 4 | (+8) | ||||||||||||||
| 1917 | Belgian Front Wanderers | +2 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1920 | Belgium | 1 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
Club career
Balyu began his football career in the youth ranks of Club Brugge in 1908, at age 17, and made his senior debut in 1911.[2] He helped the club reach the 1914 Belgian Cup final at Stade du Vivier d'Oie, which ended in a 2–1 loss to Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.[2] Balyu played a crucial role in helping Brugge win its first-ever Belgian Championship in 1919–20, scoring 23 goals.[2] He stayed loyal to the club for over a decade until 1923, when he left for FC Rouen. In 1925, he moved to US Tourquennoise, where he was also in charge of training young people. In 1928, the French newspaper L'Auto described the 37-year-old Balyu as "the oldest player in France".[3]
International career
In early 1915, Balyu, together with a small group of Belgian players who had retreated to France because of WWI, formed a committee of the Belgian FA in Paris, which organized one match against France every year.[4] Even though this Belgian team had some former internationals, such as Balyu, Emile Hanse, Jan Van Cant, or Maurice Vandendriessche, its games and its results are recognized as official only by the CFI, but not by FIFA, who categorized them as "War-time Internationals".[4] In total, Balyu played at least three games for Belgium, all of which during their triumphant campaign at the Journées du Poilu Sportif in 1916, scoring at least eight goals against three different French teams, four in a 17–0 win over FGSPF in the quarter-finals, a brace in a 4–0 win over the LFA in the semifinals, and another brace in a 3–1 win over the USFSA in the final.[5] He was also a member of the Belgian Front Wanderers, the team that toured England in 1917, where they played against the British and Canadian army on 25 and 28 November.[6]
Balyu only earned his first (and last) international cap for the official Belgium national team on 29 August 1920, in the first round of the football tournament of the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, which ended in a 3–1.[1][2] Balyu was never selected again as Belgium won the gold medal after beating Czechoslovakia 2–0 in the final.[7]
Career statistics
- Belgium score listed first, score column indicates score after each Balyu goal.
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 22 April 1916 | Stade Chevaleret, Paris, France |  FGSPF | 1–0 | 17–0 | Journées du Poilu Sportif quarter-finals |
| 2 | 2–0 | |||||
| 3 | 3–0 | |||||
| 4 | 4–0 | |||||
| 5 | 23 April 1916 | Pavillon des Princes, Boulogne, France | LFA | 3–0 | 4–0 | Journées du Poilu Sportif semifinals |
| 6 | 4–0 | |||||
| 7 | 24 April 1916 | Stade de Paris, Saint-Ouen, France | USFSA | 1–1 | 3–1 | Journées du Poilu Sportif final |
| 8 | 3–1 | |||||
Honours
Club Brugge
- Belgian Pro League: 1919–20
- Belgian Cup runner-up: 1914
Belgium
- Journées du Poilu Sportif 1916
- Summer Olympics gold medal: 1920
Individual
- Journées du Poilu Sportif top goalscorer: 1916 (at least 8 goals)
