Dan Petrescu

Daniel Vasile Petrescu (born 22 December 1967) is a Romanian football manager and former player, who is in charge of K League 1 club Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors.

After playing for Steaua București's youth teams, Petrescu was promoted into the first team in 1986 in a match played by Steaua just one month after winning the European Cup.

He was loaned to Olt Scornicești for the 1986–87 season, but asked to return to Steaua in 1987.

Petrescu was part of the Steaua squad that reached the European Cup semi-finals (1988) and the final (1989).

As a player, Petrescu was deployed as a full-back or a winger and began his career at Steaua București, with which he played in the 1989 European Cup final.

Abroad, he represented Serie A clubs Foggia and Genoa, before moving to the Premier League where he played for Sheffield Wednesday, Chelsea, Bradford City, and Southampton, respectively.

He made his debut in 1989 and played at four major tournaments: the 1994 World Cup, UEFA Euro 1996, the 1998 World Cup (where the entire Romania squad famously dyed their hair blonde after losing a bet with head coach Anghel Iordănescu), and Euro 2000.

Petrescu missed the 1990 World Cup due to injury.

In 1991, Petrescu was bought by Italian club Foggia in a period when the club saw promotion to Serie A.

In 1993, he moved to Genoa.

He earned 95 caps for the Romania national team, being selected in two World Cup squads, in 1994 and 1998, and in two European Championships, in 1996 and 2000.

Petrescu became player-assistant manager to Walter Zenga at Național București towards the end of his playing career, and has since had an extensive career as a head coach in Poland, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, Turkey, and South Korea, in addition to his native country.

His first job was at Sportul Studențesc, which he led to Liga I promotion.

Petrescu has won domestic honours with Unirea Urziceni, Kuban Krasnodar, ASA Târgu Mureș, Jiangsu Suning, and CFR Cluj.

He is the second-most successful manager in Romania, tied with Emerich Jenei, winning the league on six occasions (five times with CFR Cluj and once with Urziceni), and was also named Romania Coach of the Year a record five times, tied with Mircea Lucescu.

Petrescu signed for Sheffield Wednesday in 1994 from Genoa, after a successful 1994 World Cup for Romania.

After one season at Hillsborough, he signed for Chelsea and featured prominently there for the next five years.

In 1994, Petrescu played in his first World Cup, held in the United States.

He scored the only goal in a win against the United States which saw Romania qualify for the second round as group winners.

They were then handed a difficult game against Argentina which they managed to win, only to lose to Sweden on penalties in the quarter-finals, with Petrescu one of two Romanians to miss his spot-kick.

The miss still haunts him today.

"It will probably stay with me for the rest of my life", he said.

After the World Cup, he flew to Saint Thomas and spent two weeks in the Caribbean region.

Euro 1996 was a disappointment for Romania, as they lost all three group matches and only managed to score one goal.

During his term at Chelsea, he was a member of the teams which won the FA Cup in 1997 and the League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup (both in 1998).

With Chelsea, Petrescu won the 1998 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

At the 1998 World Cup in France, Petrescu raced past his Chelsea teammate Graeme Le Saux and scored the winning goal against England, which effectively won them the group and ensured they would not have to face Argentina in the second round.

He became the second Romanian player to score in two different World Cups after Ștefan Dobay.

The Romanians, however, lost their second round match to Croatia, 1–0.

After falling out with Chelsea manager Gianluca Vialli after a defeat to Manchester United (a game in which he scored), Petrescu never played for the club again and was not even selected as a substitute for the 2000 FA Cup final against Aston Villa.

Turning down a move to Southampton in August 2000, he instead moved to Bradford City for £1 million, scoring one goal, against West Ham United.

Petrescu was an important piece of the Romanian team at Euro 2000, where they survived a group with Portugal, Germany and England.

In January 2001, Petrescu's former Chelsea manager, Glenn Hoddle, eventually persuaded him to join Southampton for a "nominal" fee.

He initially settled in well at The Dell, scoring against Leicester City and Manchester City in his first few matches.

In March, Hoddle left the Saints to take up the managerial reins at Tottenham Hotspur and his replacement, Stuart Gray, dropped Petrescu, replacing him with Hassan Kachloul for the remainder of the season.

After making only two substitute appearances in the 2001–02 season, Petrescu was released and returned to Romania.

Petrescu returned to his native Bucharest for a last season as a footballer, with Național București.

His last match was the Cupa României final, on 31 May 2003; Național lost 1–0 to Dinamo București, during which Petrescu received much abuse from some of the Dinamo fans as he left the pitch at the end of 90 minutes, even though it was the last game of one of Romania's greatest footballers.

Presumably, this was because he used to play for Dinamo's greatest rivals, Steaua.

Petrescu registered 95 caps for the senior Romania national team.