Gheorghe Hagi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gheorghe Hagi
Personal information
Full name	Gheorghe Hagi
Date of birth	February 5, 1965 (age 42)
Place of birth	Săcele, Romania
Nickname	Maradona din Carpaţi (Maradona of the Carpathians)
Playing position	Manager (former Midfielder)
Club information
Current club	N/A
Youth clubs
1978–1980 1980–1981 1981–1982	Farul Constanţa Luceafărul Bucharest Farul Constanţa
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1982-1983 1983-1987 1987-1990 1990-1992 1992-1994 1994-1996 1996-2001	Farul Constanţa Sportul Studenţesc Steaua Bucureşti Real Madrid Brescia Calcio FC Barcelona Galatasaray	18 (7) 107 (58) 97 (76) 63 (15) 61 (15) 35 (7) 132 (59)
National team2
1983-2000	Romania	125 (35)
Teams managed
2001 2003 2004-2005 2006	Romania Bursaspor Galatasaray FCU Politehnica Timişoara
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of June 30, 2006. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of June 30, 2006. * Appearances (Goals)

Gheorghe Hagi /ˈge̯or.ge ˈha.ʤi/, (born February 5, 1965 in Săcele, Constanţa), is a Romanian former football player and is now a coach.

Nicknamed "The Maradona of the Carpathians", he is considered a hero in his homeland as well as in Turkey. He has won his country's "Player of the Year" award a record six times, and was recently named Romanian football player of the century. Alongside Nadia Comăneci, Ilie Năstase and Nicolae Ceauşescu, Hagi is the best-known Romanian in the world.^{[citation needed]}

He played for the Romanian national team in three World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 1998, as well as in three European Football Championships in 1984, 1996 and 2000. He won a total of 125 caps for Romania, being ranked second after Dorinel Munteanu, and scored 35 goals, being ranked first.

In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Romania by the Romanian Football Federation as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years. [1].

In March 2004, he was named among the top 125 living footballers by Pelé

Contents 1 Club career 2 National team 3 Career as Coach 4 Honours 5 Trivia 6 Notes 7 External links

[edit] Club career

He started his career playing for the youth teams of Farul Constanţa in the 1970s, before being selected by the Romanian Football Federation to join the squad of Luceafărul Bucharest in 1980 for two years. In 1982 he returned to Constanţa, but one year later, aged 18, he was prepared to make the step to a top team. He was originally directed to FC Universitatea Craiova, then the best team in Romania's Divizia A, but chose Sportul Studenţesc of Bucharest instead.

In the winter of 1987 Hagi was transferred to FC Steaua Bucureşti as the team prepared their European Super Cup final against FC Dynamo Kyiv. He actually was a professional basketball player first. The original contract was for one game only, the final. However after winning the trophy, Hagi scoring the only goal of the final, Steaua did not want to release him back to Sportul Studenţesc and retained him for the next years. During his Steaua years, (1987 - 1990), Hagi played 97 Liga I games, scoring 76 goals. He and the team reached the European Cup semifinal in 1988 and the final in the following year, champions of Romania in 1987, 1988 and 1989 and winning the Romania Cup in 1987, 1988 and 1989.

After the 1990 World Cup, he was signed by Real Madrid. The La Liga side paid $4.3 million to Steaua for him. Hagi played two seasons with Real Madrid and then was sold to Brescia Calcio.

Hagi helped Brescia Calcio win the Italian Serie B and get promoted to Serie A, but in the next season the club relegated back to Serie B and Hagi left the club to play for FC Barcelona.

After two years at FC Barcelona, Hagi signed for Galatasaray S.K.. Hagi did not win any trophies in Spain, neither with Real Madrid nor with FC Barcelona. However, at Galatasaray, he was both successful and highly popular among the Turkish supporters of the Istanbul side. Hagi and manager Fatih Terim built a team that would win the UEFA Cup after defeating Arsenal and then the European Super Cup after a final with Hagi's former club, Real Madrid.

[edit] National team

Hagi made his debut for the Romania national team at the age of 18 in 1983 in a game against Norway played in Oslo. He was part of the Romanian team until 2000.

Hagi led the Romanian team to its best ever international performance at the 1994 World Cup, where the team reached the quarterfinals. Hagi scored three times in the tournament. In the first of Romania's group stage matches, against Colombia, Hagi scored one of the most memorable goals of that tournament, curling in a 40-yard lob over Colombian goalkeeper Oscar Córdoba who was caught off-position.

Four years later, after the 1998 World Cup, Hagi decided to retire from the national team, only to change his mind after few months and play at the 2000 European Football Championship.

Hagi retired from professional football in 2001, age 36.

[edit] Career as Coach

In 2001 Hagi was named the manager of Romania, replacing Ladislau Bölöni, who left the squad to coach Sporting Clube de Portugal. However, after failing to qualify the team for the World Cup, Hagi was sacked. His only notable achievement during the six months as Romania's manager was the win in Budapest against Hungary, the first of this kind for the Romania national football team.

In 2003, Hagi took over as coach of Turkish first division side Bursaspor, but left the club after a disappointing start to the season. He then became manager of Galatasaray in 2004, leading the team to the Turkish Football Cup in 2005.

Steaua Bucharest wanted to hire him in the summer of 2005, but Hagi's requested wage could not be met by the Romanian champions. Hagi became manager of FCU Politehnica Timişoara instead, from where he was sacked after a few months.

[edit] Honours

• with Steaua Bucharest:
  • European Supercup: 1987
  • Romanian Football Championship: 1987, 1988, 1989
  • Romanian Cup: 1987, 1988, 1989
• with Galatasaray:
  • UEFA Cup: 2000
  • European Supercup: 2000
  • Turkish Football Championship: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
  • Turkish Cup: 1999, 2000, 2005 (as coach)

[edit] Trivia

• Gheorghe Hagi is a close friend of Gheorghe Popescu, his former teammate from FC Barcelona and Galatasaray. Their wives are sisters.
• Hagi is the owner of the Iaki Hotel in Mamaia, on the Romanian Black Sea coast.
• Constanţa's main stadium used to bear his name, but it was changed after Hagi signed with FCU Politehnica Timişoara in 2005.^[1]

Preceded by Fatih Terim	Galatasaray SK Coach 2004-2005	Succeeded by Eric Gerets
Preceded by Cosmin Olăroiu	FCU Politehnica Timişoara Coach 2005-2006	Succeeded by Iosif Rotariu

[edit] Notes

1. ^ "Constanţa s-a lepădat de Gheorghe Hagi", Gândul, November 5, 2005. Retrieved on 2006-09-03.

[edit] External links

• Gheorghe Hagi's official website
• Hagi's Iaki Hotel
• UEFA.com - Romania's Golden Player

	Romania squad - 1990 FIFA World Cup
1 Lung | 2 Rednic | 3 Klein | 4 Andone | 5 Rotariu | 6 G. Popescu | 7 Lăcătuş | 8 Sabău | 9 Cămătaru | 10 Hagi | 11 Lupu | 12 Stelea | 13 A. Popescu | 14 Răducioiu | 15 Mateuţ | 16 Timofte | 17 Dumitrescu | 18 Balint | 19 Săndoi | 20 Muzsnay | 21 Lupescu | 22 Liliac | Coach: Jenei

	Romania squad - 1994 FIFA World Cup Quarter-finalists
1 Prunea | 2 Petrescu | 3 Prodan | 4 Belodedici | 5 Lupescu | 6 Popescu | 7 Munteanu | 8 Chiriţă | 9 Răducioiu | 10 Hagi | 11 Dumitrescu | 12 Stelea | 13 Selymes | 14 Mihali | 15 Panduru | 16 Vlădoiu | 17 Moldovan | 18 Gâlcă | 19 Papură | 20 Stîngă | 21 Ivan | 22 Preda | Coach: Iordănescu

	Romania squad - 1998 FIFA World Cup
1 Stângaciu | 2 Petrescu | 3 Dulca | 4 Doboş | 5 Gâlcă | 6 Gheorghe Popescu | 7 Lăcătuş | 8 Munteanu | 9 Moldovan | 10 Hagi | 11 Ilie | 12 Stelea | 13 Ciobotariu | 14 Niculescu | 15 Marinescu | 16 Gabriel Popescu | 17 Dumitrescu | 18 Filipescu | 19 Stîngă | 20 Selymes | 21 Craioveanu | 22 Prunea | Coach: Iordănescu

Persondata
NAME	Hagi, Gheorghe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Romanian footballer
DATE OF BIRTH	5 February 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH	Săcele , Romania
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH