Victor Pițurcă

Victor " PITI " Piţurcă ( born May 8, 1956 in Orodel, Dolj county ) is a former Romanian football player and current coach. As a player, he played 301 games in the highest Romanian football league, the Divizia A, scoring 165 goals.

Career as a football player

Victor Piţurcă began at the age of 14 years at Universitatea Craiova playing football. To get to match fitness, Piţurcă was loaned the age of 18 at the beginning of the season 1974/75 at Dinamo Slatina in the subprime Divizia B. After a year he returned to Craiova and was a member of the first team. His debut in Divizia A he gave on 19 November 1975., But this should remain only one of a few uses of Piţurcă for Uni Craiova. Since he was only little attention, in 1977 he joined again in the Divizia B Pandurii Târgu Jiu. After the descent at the end of the season he joined in 1978 the league rivals CSM Drobeta Turnu Severin, but could also not avoid relegation.

Despite the lack of sporting success of FC Olt Scorniceşti became aware of Piţurcă, who had just ascended to the Divizia A. At FC Olt the jump he succeeded to the root player and he played a key role in ensuring that Olt initially held the class and could be placed in the following years in the upper middle, without reaching the qualification for the European Cup. After switching to Steaua Bucharest in 1983 Piţurcă succeeded finally breakthrough and celebrated his greatest successes with Steaua. By 1989 he was able to win five championships and four Cups. The highlight of his career represents the winning the European Champions' Cup in 1986, where he was however replaced before the decisive penalty shootout. In 1989 he reached the final with Steaua again, but lost to AC Milan.

Then Piţurcă could move abroad and joined the RC Lens on who played his time in Ligue 2. There, he finished his career in 1990.

National

Although in the mid -1980s Piţurcă was one of the most goals in the Divizia A, he played only 13 games for the Romanian national football team. He made his debut on March 27, 1985 against Poland. Already on 18 November 1987 he moved to Austria his last international game.

Career as a coach

After the end of his active career Piţurcă began his career as a coach. Initially he worked in the 1991/92 season under Emerich Jenei as assistant coach of Steaua Bucharest, he was after his dismissal during the winter break head coach and drove his first title with the Cup victory in 1992. However, he was replaced after the season by Anghel Iordănescu.

In 1994 Piţurcă took over his hometown club Universitatea Craiova as a coach, where he won the vice-championship in 1995. He was then replaced by Sorin Cârţu. In 1996 he took over the U21 national team. After the successful qualification for the U -21 Football Championship 1998, this took place in Romania, where the team finished only last place after a defeat against the Netherlands, Germany and Russia. Following the resignation of Anghel Iordănescu as coach of the Romanian national team after the 1998 World Cup Piţurcă was appointed coach. He successfully led the national team through qualifying for Euro 2000, but resigned in the year 1999 after differences with two of the best Romanian national team, Gheorghe Hagi and Gheorghe Popescu, from his office.

Shortly before Christmas 1999 took over his former club Steaua Bucharest Piţurcă, with whom he won 2001, the Romanian Cup. After the unsuccessful defense of the title he was released at the end of the 2001/02 season. As his successor Cosmin Olăroiu was a bad start to the 2002/ 03 season, Piţurcă returned in the fall of 2002 Steaua back. After two runner-up, he was released again in 2004 and was appointed for the second time coach in December 2004. After he had failed to qualify for World Cup 2006, he led the national team to the European Championships sovereign 2008. In April 2009, he was released after a series of weak internationals.

In July 2010, he was introduced as the new coach at Steaua Bucharest. After he had received numerous former teammates from his playing days in the coaching staff and 14 new players were bought, he was only a few weeks later, on 6 August 2010, his post again. This was due to disputes with George Becali, the patron of the association, have been. On 26 August 2010 Piţurcă took over the position of General Manager at Universitatea Craiova. After persistent disagreements with Adrian Mititelu, the patron of the club, his contract on 11 January 2011 was dissolved. On 15 June 2011 have been officially announced by Mircea Sandu that Piţurcă from 1 July 2011 again coach of Romania would be.

Achievements

As a player

• European Cup Winners ' Cup: 1986
• European Supercup winner: 1987
• Finalist in the European Champion Clubs' Cup: 1989
• Finalist in the World Cup: 1986
• Romanian champion: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989
• Romanian Cup Winners: 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989
• Romanian scorer: 1988
• 29 European games (6 goals)

As a coach

• Participants U21 European Championship: 1998
• European Championship qualifiers: 2000, 2008
• Romanian champions: 2001
• Romanian runner-up: 1995, 2003, 2004
• Romanian Cup Winners: 1992

Relationship

Victor is the father of football player Alexandru Piţurcă (born 28 October 1983), the FC Universitatea Craiova is active in since 2010.