Costică Ștefănescu

Costică Ștefănescu (26 March 1951 – 20 August 2013) was a Romanian professional football player and coach. He spent the majority of his playing career at Universitatea Craiova, where he made a club-record 378 appearances. He was the all-time appearance leader in Liga I with 490 matches, until his record was broken in October 2012 by Ionel Dănciulescu. In 1983, Ștefănescu was nominated for the Ballon d'Or. He played for Romania from 1977 to 1985, and was capped 64 times.

In August 2013, he died after he jumped from the fifth floor of a hospital in Bucharest, where he had been receiving treatment for cancer.

Club career Steaua București Ștefănescu, nicknamed Ministrul Apărării ("The Minister of Defence"), was born on 26 March 1951 in Bucharest, Romania. He began playing junior-level football in 1965 at Steaua București. In that game he played as a midfielder, afterwards playing as a forward for a few years until he established himself as a defender. His first trophy won was the 1969–70 Cupa României, as Kovács kept him on as a starter for 60 minutes before Vasile Negrea replaced him in the 2–1 victory against rivals Dinamo București in the final. The team also won the following edition of the Cupa României, but this time Kovács did not play him in the final. During his period spent with The Military Men, he played eight games with one goal scored in European Cup Winners' Cup over the course of three seasons.

Universitatea Craiova In 1973, Ștefănescu went to play for Universitatea Craiova. In the same season, he was part of Craiova's team that won the league title, which was the club's first trophy, being used by coach Constantin Cernăianu in 20 games. From 1976 onwards, he formed a successful partnership in the central defense with Nicolae Tilihoi.

Ștefănescu spent a total of 13 seasons with "U" Craiova, being the captain of the "Craiova Maxima" generation that won two consecutive league titles in 1980 and 1981.

Ștefănescu played a total of 46 games for "U" Craiova in European competitions. Afterwards, they reached the quarter-finals in the 1981–82 European Cup by eliminating Olympiacos and Kjøbenhavns Boldklub, being eliminated with 3–1 on aggregate by Bayern Munich. Ștefănescu made 10 appearances in the 1982–83 UEFA Cup campaign when they reached the semi-finals, being eliminated by Benfica on the away goal rule after 1–1 on aggregate. Contributing six matches to the 1984–85 UEFA Cup run, he helped "U" navigate past Real Betis and Olympiacos before they ultimately fell to Željezničar in the round of 16. Ștefănescu played in a 3–0 win over AS Monaco in the second leg of the first round of the 1985–86 European Cup Winners' Cup, after losing the first leg 2–0. However, they were eliminated in the following round by the eventual winners of the competition, Dynamo Kyiv. In 1983, he was nominated for the Ballon d'Or. There, he made his last Divizia A appearance on 22 June 1988 in a 4–1 loss to his former club Universitatea Craiova, totaling 490 matches with 19 goals in the competition. Subsequently, he played four matches in the successful 1977–80 Balkan Cup, including both legs of the 4–3 aggregate win against Yugoslavia in the final. He also played five games during the Euro 1980 qualifiers. Coach Mircea Lucescu used him for the entirety of all three games in the final tournament which were a draw against Spain and losses to West Germany and Portugal, as his side failed to progress from their group. Subsequently, he played seven games during the 1986 World Cup qualifiers, including his last appearance for the national team which took place on 13 November 1985 in a 3–1 away win over Turkey.

Managerial career Ștefănescu started his coaching career in 1986, being a player-coach at FCM Brașov. After leading Brașov for three years, he went to work for a while in 1990 at Steaua București. Subsequently, he led Romania's under-21 national team between 1990 and 1991. Afterwards he came back to Romania, coaching at Selena Bacău and Politehnica Timișoara before working from 1994 to 1998 as Anghel Iordănescu's assistant at Romania's national team. He came back to Romania in 2006 to coach FC U Craiova for a short while. Afterwards he went in Saudi Arabia at Najran SC, and in 2009 he worked for Al Tadamon in Kuwait.

Managing style Ștefănescu was known as a very meticulous and serious coach who did not like to joke around with his players.

On 20 August 2013, at age 62, he died after he jumped from the fifth floor of the Military Hospital in Bucharest, where he had been receiving treatment for cancer. At the funeral, former Romanian international Gheorghe Popescu praised Ștefănescu:"If you wanted to learn, you just looked at him and that was enough. I had this privilege and the extraordinary chance to be part of the same locker room as Costică Ștefănescu, because when I played in the schoolyard, in Calafat, I wanted to be none other than Costică Ștefănescu, then my dream came true to be part of the same locker room with him, to wear the captain's armband of Craiova, which he also wore. That's how I fell in love with the number 6, from Costică Ștefănescu. Even though I played with number 3 on the national team, there was no other number for me than 6, because of the love I had for him. The most wonderful thing that happened to me was to be part of the same locker room, as I told you, I consider myself privileged from this point of view".

Honours Player Steaua București Cupa României: 1969–70, 1970–71 Universitatea Craiova Divizia A: 1973–74, 1979–80, 1980–81 Cupa României: 1976–77, 1977–78, 1980–81, 1982–83 Romania Balkan Cup: 1977–80 Individual Romanian Footballer of the Year runner-up: 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985, (third place): 1978, 1980, 1983, 1984 Ballon d'Or: 1983 (23th place)

Manager Al-Wakrah Qatar Sheikh Jassem Cup: 1991 Al-Jaish Damascus Syrian Cup: 2004 AFC Cup: 2004