Post a comment
Meet our personality for this week, Roda Antar.
Roda Antar is a Sierra Leone-born Lebanese professional football manager and former player.
Born in Sierra Leone, Antar is of Lebanese descent through his father. He had played for Shandong Luneng Taishan in the Chinese Super League and was part of the Lebanon national football team from 1998 to 2013, captaining the squad from 2005 to 2013.
He also represented Lebanon at international level between 1998 and 2016, playing in the 2000 AFC Asian Cup, the 2000 and 2012 WAFF Championship, and the 1998 and 2002 Arab Nations Cup. Antar also participated in the qualifiers for the 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 FIFA World Cup tournaments. Formerly captain of Lebanon, Antar scored 20 goals for his country as a midfielder.
Antar started his career with Tadamon Sour, progressing through their youth system to the first-team squad where he made his debut at the age of 17 in the Lebanese Premier League during the 1998–99 season. He finished his career with the club having scored 13 league goals.
In July 2001, he was loaned to Germany’s Hamburger SV for two seasons, where he scored two goals in 23 Bundesliga appearances, as well as one goal in six Regionalliga Nord appearances in his second season for Hamburger SV II, the club’s reserve-team. In August 2003, Antar was brought to SC Freiburg by the club’s first-team coach Volker Finke.
After a serious injury, Antar eventually debuted in the 2003–04 season on 6 December in a 4–2 win against VfL Bochum, where Antar scored a hat-trick, and was subsequently referred to as a “Football God” by Freiburg supporters. He finished the season having scored seven goals in 17 league appearances.
Before the start of the 2004–05 season, Freiburg had signed Antar’s international team-mate Youssef Mohamad. Antar scored two goals in 23 league appearances as Freiburg were relegated to the Bundesliga. He remained there until July 2007, when both Antar and Mohamad were transferred to Bundesliga side FC Köln.
