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Gheorghe Popescu

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For the early 20th century Romanian footballer, see Gheorghe Popescu I.
Gheorghe Popescu
Personal information
Full name Gheorghe Popescu
Height 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Position(s) Sweeper / Centre back / Playmaker
Youth career
1980–1984 Dunarea Calafat
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1984–1990 Universitatea Craiova 103 (22)
1988 → Steaua Bucureşti (loan) 13 (1)
1990–1994 PSV Eindhoven 109 (24)
1994–1995 Tottenham Hotspur 23 (3)
1995–1997 FC Barcelona 59 (9)
1997–2001 Galatasaray 110 (5)
2001–2002 Lecce 28 (3)
2002 Dinamo Bucureşti 8 (0)
2002–2003 Hannover 96 14 (1)
Total 467 (68)
International career
1988–2003 Romania 115 (16)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Gheorghe Gică Popescu (born October 9, 1967 in Calafat) is a former Romanian footballer who played as a defender, and was a key part of the Romanian national team in the 1990s. He played for a string of European clubs in an illustrious career that saw him amass many honours. His tactical knowledge as a defender made him valuable team member in top European competitions even until he reached his late-thirties. Beside from his defending skills, his is also capable of using the ball and starting attacks from deep.

At international level, Popescu stands among Romania's all-time most capped players with 115, in which he scored 16 goals. He played for his country in the 1990, 1994, and 1998 World Cups, Euro 96 and Euro 2000. He also entered the symbolic but exclusive circle of players with a century of caps.[1]

After beginning his career in his native Romania, he moved to the Netherlands in 1990 and signed for PSV Eindhoven, helping keep them among the top Dutch sides, until he transferred to Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League on 9 September 1994 for a fee of £2.9million.[2] He played 23 times in the Premier League and scored three goals as Spurs (who changed manager from Ossie Ardiles to Gerry Francis a few weeks after Popescu arrived) finished seventh in the league - their highest finish for five years. He also helped them reach the FA Cup semi-finals, where they lost 4-1 to eventual cup winners Everton.[3] However, after less than a year in England, he left Tottenham to sign for the Spanish side FC Barcelona for £3million, succeeding Ronald Koeman in the team.[4] He was made captain of the Catalan club, contributing to their Copa del Rey (domestic cup) glory in his first season and their UEFA Cup Winners' Cup triumph in his second.

After leaving Barcelona in the summer of 1997, he transferred to Galatasaray of Turkey, where he spent four years and won several major trophies with them, including the UEFA Cup in May 2000 - where Galatasaray defeated Arsenal, key rivals of his old club Tottenham, on penalties after a goalless draw in open play and he scored the final penalty in the penalty shootout. He spent the 2001-02 season in Italy with Lecce, before returning to his native Romania for a brief spell with Dinamo Bucuresti, before wining up with a season in Germany with Hannover 96.

He is the brother-in-law of fellow Romanian international Gheorghe Hagi.

Popescu was never outside the top 4 in the Romanian Footballer of the Year awards for 13 years from 1989 until 2001. He was recently voted into Romanian footballs all-time World Cup team. Link

Statistics

[5] Template:Football player club statistics 1 Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |1984/85||rowspan="4"|Universitatea Craiova||rowspan="4"|Divizia A||2||0|||||||||||||||| |- |1985/86||18||1|||||||||||||||| |- |1986/87||31||1|||||||||||||||| |- |1987/88||14||1|||||||||||||||| |- |1987/88||Steaua Bucureşti||Divizia A||13||1|||||||||||||||| |- |1988/89||rowspan="2"|Universitatea Craiova||rowspan="2"|Divizia A||33||8|||||||||||||||| |- |1989/90||26||7|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |1990/91||rowspan="5"|PSV Eindhoven||rowspan="5"|Eredivisie||30||5|||||||||||||||| |- |1991/92||29||7|||||||||||||||| |- |1992/93||24||6|||||||||||||||| |- |1993/94||23||5|||||||||||||||| |- |1994/95||2||0|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |1994/95||Tottenham Hotspur||Premier League||23||3|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |1995/96||rowspan="2"|Barcelona||rowspan="2"|La Liga||39||5|||||||||||||||| |- |1996/97||29||4|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |1997/98||rowspan="5"|Galatasaray||rowspan="4"|First League||32||2|||||||||||||||| |- |1998/99||29||1|||||||||||||||| |- |1999/00||24||2|||||||||||||||| |- |2000/01||24||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2001/02||Süper Lig||1||0|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |2001/02||Lecce||Serie A||28||3|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |2002/03||Dinamo Bucureşti||Divizia A||8||0|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 2 |- |2002/03||Hannover||Bundesliga||14||1|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 3145||19|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 4108||23|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 423||3|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 468||9|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 4106||5|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 428||3|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 414||1|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player club statistics 5492||63|||||||||||||||| |}

[6] Template:Football player national team statistics |- |1988||4||0 |- |1989||8||1 |- |1990||14||0 |- |1991||6||0 |- |1992||4||1 |- |1993||4||0 |- |1994||15||1 |- |1995||5||0 |- |1996||8||6 |- |1997||7||4 |- |1998||12||2 |- |1999||8||0 |- |2000||6||0 |- |2001||5||1 |- |2002||8||0 |- |2003||1||0 |- !Total||115||16 |}

Club honours

Steaua Bucureşti
PSV Eindhoven
FC Barcelona
Galatasaray
Individual

International goals

Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first. "Score" column indicates the score after the player's goal.

References

  1. ^ Century of Caps: from [1], dated 5 April 2003.
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ [3]
  4. ^ [4]
  5. ^ http://www.national-football-teams.com/v2/player.php?id=14645
  6. ^ http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/popescu-intl.html
Sporting positions
Preceded by FC Barcelona captain
1996-1997 		Succeeded by

Template:Galatasaray SK 1999-2000 UEFA Cup Champion Squad Template:Galatasaray SK 2000 UEFA Super Cup Champion Squad

Template:Persondata

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