Virgil Popescu

Virgil Popescu (1 December 1916 – 15 February 1989) was a Romanian football player and coach. In Yugoslavia, he was known as Stanislav Popesku.

Career Popescu was born in 1916 during the First World War, in the Transylvanian town of Zlatna, back then within Austro-Hungary, nowadays in Romania. In 1918, at the end of the war, his parents moved to the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia. He began playing for Novi Sad club FK Vojvodina and was part of Vojvodina's so called Millionaires team at the beginning of the 1940s. He played with Vojvodina in the Novi Sad subassociation league in the 1938–39 season and then in the Serbian League between 1939 and 1941.

The Second World War started in Yugoslavia in 1941. Popescu was at the time attending the Commercial Academy in Belgrade, and by 6 April 1941, he was a second lieutenant defending the country against German forces. However, not very long afterwards he entered the club offices and said that he had to leave to fight alongside Yugoslav Partisans and Marshal Tito in freeing Yugoslavia, and club officials accepted his will, so he returned to Yugoslavia and joined the resistance. His passion for Serbia was such that he adopted a Serbian name, Stanislav. Earlier, he played with SAP Vojvodina in the 1945 Yugoslav Football Tournament. With Partizan he won the first Yugoslav post-World War II championship.

He later became a coach. He coached Miroslav Blažević at NK Rijeka in the Yugoslav First League. and was the assistant manager to Abdulah Gegić at Partizan when they reached the 1966 European Cup Final. He also coached Polish side Legia Warsaw in the season 1964–65. Popescu then managed Swiss team St. Gallen and Wormatia Worms in Germany before moving to Morocco and Algeria to help develop football in those countries, there he coached the Moroccan Olympic side and KAC Kénitra. In the 1972–73 season, he was at the helm of Algerian side JS Kabylie, with whom he won the championship.

Honours Player Vojvodina Novi Sad subassociation league: 1939, 1940

Partizan Yugoslav First League: 1946–47 Yugoslav Cup: 1947

Manager Legia Warsaw Polish Cup: 1964–65

JS Kabylie Algerian League: 1972–73