Marcel Coraș

Marcel Coraș (born 14 May 1959) is a Romanian former professional footballer who played as a forward.

Club career Coraș, nicknamed Dulapul (The Cabinet), was born on 14 May 1959 in Arad, Romania and began playing junior-level football in 1968 at local club UTA. He made his Divizia A debut on 18 April 1976 in UTA's 3–2 home loss to Olimpia Satu Mare. In 1984 he had an offer from Fenerbahçe, but Sportul refused to let him go. In the 1987–88 edition, he helped them get past GKS Katowice, then Peter Schmeichel and Brian Laudrup's Brøndby, winning the second leg 3–0 after an away loss by the same score, securing a historic penalty shootout qualification to the third round where they were defeated by Hellas Verona against whom he scored a goal.

He left Sportul in 1988, going to Victoria București where he was coached by Florin Halagian. They finished the 1988–89 season in third place, Coraș contributing with 36 goals scored which earned him the European Silver Boot, being seven goals behind Dinamo București's Dorin Mateuț who was the Golden Boot winner. In the first round in the following season of the same competition, Victoria met Valencia, earning a 1–1 draw in the first leg but lost the second one with 3–1 in which Coraș netted his side's goal.

In the middle of the 1989–90 season, Coraș returned to Sportul.

International career Coraș got 36 caps and six goals for Romania, making his debut while being a player at UTA Arad in the second league, as coach Mircea Lucescu sent him in the 75th to replace Marin Radu on 17 November 1982 in a 4–1 away loss in a friendly against East Germany. He scored his first goal for the national team in a friendly that ended in a 1–1 draw against Israel. The results were a 1–1 draw against Spain, followed by a 2–1 loss to West Germany in which he scored his side's goal and finally a 1–0 loss to Portugal. After the game against Spain, the Reuters news agency praised Coraș:"Spain was dominated by the strong Romanian players. Romania had enough opportunities to score, especially through the skillful forays of Coraș, the top scorer of the Romanian championship".

Managerial career Coraș started coaching in 1996 at UTA Arad, afterwards working for FC Baia Mare, Bihor Oradea, Astra Trinity Arad, ACU Arad and UTA once again, all of them in the Romanian lower leagues.

Style of play In a 2022 interview for Gazeta Sporturilor, Coraș described his style of play: "I was not a worker, (...) I was not a runner, a sprinter. I was a midfielder behind the forward or target forward. When I received the ball, I would try to pass to a teammate or score a goal. I knew what to do with the ball", also saying:"Of the more than 150 goals scored in Liga I, only about five were shots from outside the box. The rest were from the box, in front of the goal, from the goal line".

Playing statistics Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Coraș goal. + Goal Date Venue Opponent Score Result Competition 1 8 November 1983 Bloomfield Stadium, Tel Aviv, Israel 1–1 1–1 Friendly 2 7 March 1984 Stadionul Central, Craiova, Romania 1–0 2–0 Friendly 3 17 June 1984 Stade Bollaert-Delelis, Lens, France 1–1 2–1 Euro 1984 4 13 November 1985 Atatürk Stadium, İzmir, Turkey 2–0 3–1 1986 World Cup qualifiers 5 28 February 1986 Al-Iskandarīyah Stadium, Alexandria, Egypt 1–0 2–2 Friendly 6 6 February 1988 Kiryat Eliezer Stadium, Haifa, Israel 1–0 2–2 Friendly

Honours UTA Arad Divizia B: 1980–81 Sportul Studențesc Divizia A runner-up: 1985–86 Individual Divizia A top scorer: 1983–84 European Silver Boot: 1988–89