Constantin Cernăianu

Constantin Cernăianu (12 October 1933 – 22 June 2015) was a Romanian football player and coach. As a head coach, Cernăianu secured two league titles with clubs outside Bucharest, Petrolul Ploiești and Universitatea Craiova.

Playing career Cernăianu was born on 12 October 1933 in Târgu Jiu, Romania and began playing football in 1949 at local club Flacăra. In 1954 he went for one year at Știința București, then he returned to Târgu Jiu at Pandurii where he played until 1960 when he retired. Cernăianu became the team's head coach in 1965, helping it win the 1965–66 Divizia A championship, thus at age 32 becoming one of the youngest coaches who ever won the title. In the middle of that season he went for a month to study the training sessions of Helenio Herrera's Inter Milan. In 1968, Ilie Oană came back to Petrolul, Cernăianu being his assistant again until 1969 when Oană left the club to coach Panserraikos in Greece. This outcome led poet Adrian Păunescu to nickname Craiova as "Campioana unei mari iubiri" (The Champion of a great love). In the same season he helped Craiova win the league title, which was the first trophy in the club's history. They also reached the 1975 Cupa României final which was eventually lost after a 2–1 defeat to Rapid București. Notably, Cernăianu is recognized as the coach who in 1973 gave 16-year-old Ilie Balaci his debut in professional football.

During the same period he coached simultaneously Romania's students football team, winning two Universiade gold medals in the 1972 edition held in Romania and the 1974 one in France.

From 1976 until 1978, he was Ștefan Kovács's assistant at Romania's national team, failing to qualify for the 1978 World Cup. His following two games were a loss to Yugoslavia and a victory over Cyprus in the Euro 1980 qualifiers.

Cernăianu has a total of 390 matches as a manager in the Romanian top-division, Divizia A, consisting of 168 victories, 93 draws and 129 losses.

Works In 1997, he wrote a book about football coaching titled (The Professional Coach's Handbook).

Death Cernăianu died on 22 June 2015 at the age of 81.

Honours Manager Petrolul Ploiești Divizia A: 1965–66 Universitatea Craiova Divizia A: 1973–74, runner-up 1972–73 Cupa României runner-up: 1974–75 Olympiakos Nicosia Cypriot Second Division: 1983–84 Cypriot Cup runner-up: 1990–91 Romania University World University Championships: 1972, 1974