Mircea Lucescu

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Lucescu
Personal information
Full name	Mircea Lucescu
Date of birth	July 29, 1945 (age 61)
Place of birth	Bucharest, Romania
Playing position	Manager (Former Striker)
Club information
Current club	Shakhtar Donetsk
Youth clubs
	Dinamo Bucureşti
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1963-1965 1965-1966 1966-1967 1967-1977 1977-1982	Dinamo Bucureşti Ştiinţa Bucureşti Politehnica Bucureşti Dinamo Bucureşti Corvinul Hunedoara	3 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 247 (57) 50 (9)
National team
?	Romania	74 (9)
Teams managed
1979-1980 1981-1985 1985-1990 1990-1991 1991-1996 1996-1997 1997-1998 1999 1999-2000 2000-2002 2002-2004 2004-	Corvinul Hunedoara Romania Dinamo Bucureşti Pisa Calcio Brescia Calcio A.C. Reggiana Rapid Bucureşti Inter Milan Rapid Bucureşti Galatasaray SK Beşiktaş J.K. Shakhtar Donetsk
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Mircea Lucescu (born July 29, 1945, in Bucharest) is a former Romanian football player and one of the most successful Romanian football managers.

After coaching Romanian natioan team, and a long career in Italy, he came to Turkcell Super League to coach Galatasaray SK in June 2000. He was suggested to the Gala directors by Gheorghe Hagi. Lucescu had signed right after Galatasaray had won the UEFA cup under the Turkish coach Fatih Terim. He started really well with Galatasaray, winning the European Super Cup against Real Madrid. Under Lucescu's managership, Galatasaray qualified to quarter finals in Champions League in 2000-01 season for the first time. At the quarter finals they lost to Real Madrid. The same year, he lost the Turkish League title to rivals Fenerbahce S.K.. In the following season 2001-02, he succeeded to win the league championship, despite a lot of good players had left the team, including Gheorghe Hagi, Gheorghe Popescu, Umit Davala, Hakan Sukur, Mario Jardel, Hakan Unsal, Emre Belozoglu and Okan Buruk. In June 2002, Galatasaray SK decided to replace his position with Turkish manager and a Galatasaray legend Fatih Terim, who has been lately coaching AC Milan.

Mircea Lucescu was disappointed to be sacked despite winning the league champion title. In June 2002, he signed a contract with rival Beşiktaş J.K.. It was a very important season for Beşiktaş J.K. since, in 2003, the reputable Turkish club was celebrating her 100th foundation year. In this atmospere, Beşiktaş J.K. made a great work under Mircea Lucescu's management. They won the Turkish title by having only 1 lose, and collecting 85 points; a record for Turkcell Super League as the maximum points collected in a season. So Beşiktaş J.K. was able to succeed by gaining championship in 2003, in their first century fest.

In the 2002-03 season, Beşiktaş J.K. reached the quarter final of the UEFA Cup, only to lose to SS Lazio. 2003-04 season started very well for Mircea Lucescu and Besiktas. The team could not qualify from a difficult Champions League group, but was able to get a ticket to UEFA Cup by holding the 3rd position in the group. In the second half of the season, the team suddenly started to decline. Lucescu could not stop the decline. He blamed rivals Fenerbahce and Turkish Footbal Federation for paying the Besiktas opponents money to play rough and one-sided decisions by the referees. After a disastrous second half, Lucescu decided to leave Turkey plaming that his championship was stolen.

He is currently the manager of Shakhtar Donetsk. His son, Răzvan Lucescu, is a former goalkeeper who is now managing FC Rapid Bucureşti. Coincidentally, Shakhtar and Rapid met in the group stage of the UEFA Cup in November 2005.

Mircea has helped his clubs make numerous achievements, including winning the European Super Cup, 2 Turkcell Super League titles, reaching the quarterfinals and a second Group Stage in the UEFA Champions League, 2 Romanian League titles, and 2 Ukrainian League titles, among others.

[edit] External links

• Mircea Lucescu biography

Preceded by Fatih Terim

Galatasaray SK managers 2000-2002

Succeeded by Fatih Terim

Preceded by Christoph Daum

Besiktas JK managers 2002-2004

Succeeded by Vicente Del Bosque

	Romania squad - 1970 FIFA World Cup
1 Răducanu | 2 Sătmăreanu | 3 Lupescu | 4 Mocanu | 5 Dinu | 6 Coe | 7 Dembrovschi | 8 Dobrin | 9 Dumitrache | 10 Nunweiller | 11 Lucescu | 12 Ivăncescu | 13 Deleanu | 14 Gergely | 15 Dumitru | 16 Neagu | 17 Tătaru | 18 Tufan | 19 Domide | 20 Pescaru | 21 Adamache | 22 Gornea | Coach: Niculescu