Alexandru Ștefan Pașcanu (born 28 September 1998) is a Romanian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a defender for

Liga I Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1 and officially known as SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Romania and the highest level of the Romanian football league system. Contested by 1 ...

club

Rapid București Rapid(s) or RAPID may refer to: Hydrological features * Rapids, sections of a river with turbulent water flow * Rapid Creek (Iowa River tributary), Iowa, United States * Rapid Creek (South Dakota), United States, namesake of Rapid City Sport ...

and the Romania national team.

Early life

Pașcanu grew up in Bogdănești,

Vaslui County Vaslui County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in the historical region Western Moldavia, with the seat at Vaslui. Demographics In 2011, it had a population of 395,499 and the population density was 74/km2. * Romanians - over 98% * Romani ...

, before moving to England with his family where he spent the rest of his childhood and teenage years.

Club career

Pașcanu began his football career in the

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

, playing alongside the likes of

Ben Chilwell Benjamin James Chilwell (born 21 December 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a left-back or left wing-back for club Chelsea, and the England national team. Beginning his career at Leicester City, Chilwell had a loan spe ...

Harvey Barnes Harvey Lewis Barnes (born 9 December 1997) is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger for club Newcastle United. Barnes joined Leicester City at the age of nine before signing his first professional contract as well as mak ...

and

Hamza Choudhury Hamza Dewan Choudhury (; born 1 October 1997) is a professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder or right-back for club Sheffield United, on loan from Leicester City. Born in England, he plays for the Bangladesh national team. ...

. He was however unable to follow them into the first-team squad, and on 30 August 2019 returned to Romania to sign with reigning champions

CFR Cluj Fotbal Club CFR 1907 Cluj, commonly known as CFR Cluj ( or ) or simply CFR, is a Romanian professional association football, football club based in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County, that competes in the Liga I. Founded as ''Kolozsvári Vasut ...

for an undisclosed fee. Pașcanu only amassed five appearances for "the White-Burgundies", before joining fellow

side

Voluntari Voluntari () is a town in Ilfov County, Muntenia, Romania. It is located at a distance of 1 km from the northern border of Bucharest (on the DN2 road towards Urziceni) and is thus frequently viewed as a suburb of Bucharest. The population ...

in January 2020 on a loan deal until the end of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

. On 28 August 2020, he was sent out on a two-year loan to Spanish

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commonly known as Segunda División or La Liga 2, and officially known as LaLiga HyperMotion for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spa ...

side Ponferradina. On 17 January 2022, Ponferradina announced it had reached an agreement with his parent club for the permanent transfer of Pașcanu. On 12 August 2023, after ''Ponfe''s

relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

, he was loaned to

Sporting de Gijón Real Sporting de Gijón, S.A.D. (), commonly known as Real Sporting, Sporting Gijón, or simply Sporting is a Spanish professional association football, football club from Gijón, Principality of Asturias. Founded on 1 July 1905, it plays in the ...

also in the second division, for one year. On 29 July 2024, Pașcanu returned again to his native country, signing a two-year-contract with

International career

Pașcanu started in all but one of Romania under-21's ten qualifying matches for the 2019 European Championship as the nation won its group undefeated. His performances led to a first call-up to the senior team, on 11 November 2018. In the final stage of the under-21 tournament hosted by Italy and San Marino, Pașcanu aided his side in reaching the

semi-finals A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

and thus qualified the country to the

2020 Summer Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

. His age also made him eligible for the 2021 edition of the

European Championship A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

, where he played in all three

group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

matches. Pașcanu scored the winner in a 2–1 defeat of

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and surpassed

Ionuț Luțu Ionuț is a Romanian masculine given name. The English equivalent is Johnny. Notable persons with that name include: * Ionuț Andrei (born 1985), Romanian bobsledder * Ionuț Badea (born 1975), Romanian footballer * Ionuț Bălan (born 1978), ...

to become the most capped player at under-21 level. In July that year, he went on to participate with

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

in the postponed Summer Olympics. Pașcanu made his debut for Romania national team on 18 November 2024 in a Nations League game against Cyprus at the

Arena Națională The National Arena () is a retractable roof football stadium in Bucharest, Romania. It opened in 2011 on the site of the original National Stadium, which was demolished between 2007 and 2008. The stadium hosts major football matches including h ...

. He played a full game in Romania's 4–1 victory.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

CFR Cluj *

: 2019–20 Individual * Leicester City U23 Player of the Season: 2016–17

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pascanu, Alexandru 1998 births Living people Sportspeople from Bârlad Footballers from Vaslui County Romanian emigrants to the United Kingdom Romanian men's footballers Men's association football defenders Liga I players CFR Cluj players FC Voluntari players Segunda División players SD Ponferradina players Sporting de Gijón players FC Rapid București players Romania men's youth international footballers Romania men's under-21 international footballers Romania men's international footballers Olympic footballers for Romania Footballers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Romanian expatriate men's footballers Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Spain 21st-century Romanian sportsmen