After a 10-day “battle” in a Bucharest hospital, Mircea Lucescu, one of the top coaches of his generation, has breathed his last breath. At the age of 80, the Romanian father of PAOK coach Razvan Lucescu had been hospitalised since Sunday 29/3 after suffering a heart attack during a training session with the Romanian national team. He had been hospitalised three more times since the start of the year in January and February.
Born on July 29, 1945 in Bucharest, he had a great career as a footballer for Dinamo with 250 appearances and 57 goals from 1963 to 1977. He was an international with 64 games and 9 goals.
However, his coaching career far outstripped his playing career. He started (1981) and finished (just tonight) his career on the bench for the Romanian national team, and in between he spent time with 11 teams, almost all of them with success. He recorded the most and biggest as coach of Shakhtar Donestk (2004-2016) with one UEFA Cup (2009), 8 championships and 6 Ukrainian Cups. He also won a cup and championship in Ukraine with Dynamo Kyiv (2020-2023), while in Turkey he won a championship with Besiktas (2003) and a league (2002) and European Super Cup (2000) with Galatasaray. In his homeland, he won both titles with both Dynamo (1990 double) and Rapid Bucharest (1999 league, 1998 cup).
With the Romanian national team he may not have achieved any major distinction, but it was he who led them to the EURO final for the first time (1984). But even more historic is the fact that he gave the first national team call-up to Georghe Haji at the age of 18 and handed him the captain’s armband at 20, having diagnosed him as coaching the greatest Romanian footballer of all time.
When you add in Brescia’s promotion to Serie A in the summer of ’92, the number of titles won by the legendary Lucescu exceeds 30, after 35 years on the bench and more than 60 years in the top flight of European football.
