Professional
On October 27, 1981, the St. Louis Steamers of Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) selected Betancourt in the first round (12th overall) in the college draft. Betancourt declined to sign with the Steamers and instead returned to Honduras to make himself eligible for the Honduran national team, then beginning qualification for the 1982 FIFA World Cup. When he returned to Honduras, he joined Real CD España. While Betancourt failed to play any of the Honduran qualification games, national team manager José de la Paz Herrera called up Betancourt to replace the injured Jimmy James Bailey. Betancourt would go on to play every minute of Honduras’ three games (0–2–1 record) during the cup.
After the World Cup, Betancourt moved to France to pursue a professional career with Racing Club Strasbourg, which played in the French First Division at the time. He joined Strasbourg in June 1982 and remained with the team until June 1984. During his time with Strasbourg, he played 38 league games, scoring 5 goals. He played another 7 cup games, but scored no goals in them.
Betancourt returned to the U.S. and signed with the St. Louis Steamers of Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) for the 1984–1985 season. In 1985, he was on the roster of Spanish club CD Logroñés, then playing in the Spanish First Division.
In 1985, Betancourt was called up to the Honduran national team for its qualification campaign for the 1986 FIFA World Cup. While Betancourt scored 3 times, Honduras failed to make the cup finals. Betancourt returned to the U.S. and played with the Kansas City Comets of MISL during the 1987–1988 pre-season.
He then returned to Honduras where he played for Marathón in 1988. He then moved to Florida where he lived for several years before returning to Honduras to enter politics.
Read more about this topic: Porfirio Armando Betancourt
Famous quotes containing the word professional:
“Many young girls are ... becoming trained nurses, whose gentle ministrations in the sick-room, skilled touch, patient watchfulness and unwearied vigils, are as great factors in the care of the sick, as are the professional physicians.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“We have been weakened in our resistance to the professional anti-Communists because we know in our hearts that our so-called democracy has excluded millions of citizens from a normal life and the normal American privileges of health, housing and education.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)