Nicolae "Nicușor" Dumitru (12 December 1928 – 8 August 2005) was a

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 ...

n striker and manager. He is the most successful Manager in Romania, winning the

Romanian first league 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 ...

on seven occasions, all with

Dinamo București A dynamo is a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator. Dynamo or Dinamo may also refer to: Places * Dinamo (Moscow Metro), a station of the Moscow Metro, Moscow, Russia * Dinamo (Yekaterinburg Metro), a station of the Yekaterin ...

. Nicolae Dumitru also won two Romanian Cups, and went on to guide Dinamo to the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

semi-finals in the 1983–84 season. He has a total of 558 matches as manager in Divizia A.

Club career

Nicolae Dumitru was born on 12 December 1928 in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

and he started playing football in 1945 at Sparta București in the regional championship and then in

Divizia B The Liga 2, most commonly spelled as Liga II, is the second level of the Romanian football league system. The league changed its name from Divizia B just before the start of the 2006–07 football season. It is currently sponsored by Casa Pariu ...

, after two seasons going to play for Metalul București also in Divizia B, helping the team promote to

Divizia A 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 ...

where he made his debut under coach

Augustin Botescu Augustin Botescu was a Romanian football manager who coached Romania at the 1960 European Nations' Cup qualifiers and Romania's Olympic team at the 1960 Summer Olympics qualifiers, failing to qualify for both tournaments. He has a total of 7 g ...

on 22 August 1948 in a 6–1 loss in front of

CFR Timișoara CFR may refer to: Biology * 23S rRNA (adenine2503-C2,C8)-dimethyltransferase, an enzyme * 23S rRNA (adenine2503-C2)-methyltransferase, an enzyme Organizations * China Fire and Rescue, China's firefighting force * , the Romanian state railway ...

. He was transferred to

in 1949 where he spent 10 seasons, his first performance with the club being the reaching of the

1954 Cupa României final Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

where coach

Angelo Niculescu Angelo Niculescu (1 October 1921 – 20 June 2015) was a Romanian football player and manager. He is best remembered in Romania for being the national team's coach at the 1970 World Cup and for inventing the "temporizare" ("delaying") tactics ...

used him all the minutes in the eventual 2–0 loss in front of Metalul Reșița. In the following season season he helped the club win the first Divizia A title in its history, being used by Niculescu in 21 matches in which he scored two goals. Dumitru played in the first European match of a Romanian team in the

1956–57 European Cup The 1956–57 European Cup was the second season of the European Cup, Europe's premier club football tournament. The competition was won for the second time by Real Madrid, who beat Fiorentina 2–0 in the final at the Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid ...

in the 3–1 victory against

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club''), more commonly referred to as simply Galatasaray and familiarly as Cimbom, is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul including basketball, wheelchair ...

, helping '' The Red Dogs'' go to the next phase of the competition where they were eliminated by CDNA Sofia, against whom he scored a goal. He reached another

Cupa României The Cupa României () is a Association football, football cup competition for List of football clubs in Romania, Romanian teams which has been held annually since 1933–34 Cupa României, 1933–34, except during World War II. It is the Romania ...

final in

1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...

, this time the club won it but coach

Iuliu Baratky Gyula Barátky (; 14 May 1910 – 14 April 1962) was footballer who represented both Hungary and Romania internationally. His preferred position was the half right. He played a total of 155 games in the national Romanian championships (scoring ...

did not use him in the 4–0 over CSM Baia Mare. On 23 August 1959, Dumitru played his last Divizia A match for Dinamo in a 0–0 with

Minerul Lupeni Clubul Sportiv Viitorul Minerul Lupeni, commonly referred to as Minerul Lupeni, is a Romanian football club based in Lupeni, Hunedoara County, which competes in Liga III , the third tier of the Romanian football league system. Established in 192 ...

, having a total of 191 matches in which he scored 56 goals in the competition.

International career

Dumitru played eight games at international level for

. He made his debut at the 1954 World Cup qualifiers under coach

Gheorghe Popescu I Gheorghe Popescu (8 August 1919 – 1 January 2001) was a Romanian footballer and also a manager. He played as a striker. Club career Gheorghe Popescu was born on 8 August 1919 in Bucharest, Romania, starting to play junior level football in ...

, playing in three games, the first one was a 2–0 loss in front of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, the second was a 3–1 victory against

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

and the third was a 1–0 loss with

. His following five games were friendlies, his last appearance was in a 1–1 with

Managerial career

Nicolae Dumitru started his managerial career at

, having several spells at the club, winning a total of seven

titles and two

. He also guided Dinamo to the

semi-finals in the 1983–84 season after eliminating

Kuusysi Lahti FC Kuusysi (; Finnish for ''FC sixty-nine'') is a football club in Lahti, Finland. Its men's team is currently playing in the fourth tier of Finnish football (''Kolmonen''), and its women's team is playing in Kakkonen. The homeground of FC Kuusy ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

who was the defending

champion and Dinamo Minsk, before being eliminated with 3–1 on aggregate by

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

. Dumitru also coached

Victoria București Victoria București was a Romanian football club based in Bucharest, founded in 1949 and dissolved right after the Romanian revolution of 1989. The club was sustained by the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs (the " Miliția", Police). In 198 ...

, SC Bacău,

Argeș Pitești Arges or Argeș may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Romania * Argeș County, a county in Muntenia, with its capital at Pitești * Argeș Region, an administrative division from 1950 to 1952 * Argeș River, which flows through the Southern ...

, Progresul Brăila and Progresul București in Divizia A, having a total of 558 matches as manager in the competition, consisting of 250 victories, 120 draws and 188 losses, his only coaching experience outside Romania was when he coached Ghana's national team from 1973 until 1974.

Death

Dumitru died on 8 August 2005 in

at the age of 76.

Honours

Player

Metalul București *

: 1947–48 Dinamo București *

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

: 1958–59, runner-up

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

Manager

Dinamo București *

: 1961–62, 1962–63, 1963–64, 1970–71, 1974–75, 1982–83, 1983–84 *

: 1963–64, 1983–84

Notes

References

External links

*
Nicolae Dumitru player statistics
at Labtof.ro
Nicolae Dumitru manager statistics
at Labtof.ro {{DEFAULTSORT:Dumitru, Nicolae 1928 births 2005 deaths Footballers from Bucharest Romanian men's footballers Men's association football forwards Liga I players Liga II players FC Dinamo București players FC Sportul Studențesc București players Romania men's international footballers Romanian football managers FC Dinamo București managers FC Argeș Pitești managers Victoria București managers AFC Dacia Unirea Brăila managers FC Progresul București managers FCM Bacău managers Ghana national football team managers Romanian expatriate football managers 20th-century Romanian sportsmen