Mircea Lucescu (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈmirtʃe̯a luˈtʃesku]; 29 July 1945 – 7 April 2026) was a Romanian professional football player and manager.
Lucescu was one of the most successful footballers of the Romanian league championship, having won all seven of his titles with Dinamo București between 1964 and 1990. He also had spells at Știința București and Corvinul Hunedoara, and made 64 appearances for the Romania national team, which he captained at the 1970 FIFA World Cup.
Lucescu started his managerial career in 1979, while still playing for Corvinul Hunedoara. In the next five decades, he went on coach various sides in Romania, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia. He was widely regarded for his twelve-year stint in charge of Shakhtar Donetsk, where he became the most successful coach in the club's history by winning eight Ukrainian Premier League titles, six Ukrainian Cups, seven Ukrainian Super Cups, and the 2008–09 UEFA Cup. He also won trophies in Ukraine with Shakhtar's rival Dynamo Kyiv, as well as Romanian titles with Dinamo București and Rapid București, and Turkish Süper Lig titles with Galatasaray and Beşiktaş.
Lucescu was named Romania Coach of the Year in 2004, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2021, and Ukraine Coach of the Year in 2006 and for seven consecutive years from 2008 to 2014. In 2013, he was awarded the Manager of the Decade award in Romania, and in 2015 became the fifth person to coach in 100 UEFA Champions League matches, joining Alex Ferguson, Carlo Ancelotti, Arsène Wenger, and José Mourinho. He also ranks third in football history with 38 official trophies.
Lucescu died in 2026, aged 80, shortly after completing his second stint with the Romania national team.
Lucescu was born on 29 July 1945 in Bucharest, Romania, and was part of a family of five children. He began playing junior-level football in 1961 at Școala Sportivă 2 București. Coach Traian Ionescu brought him to Dinamo București, where he made his Divizia A debut on 21 June 1964 in a 5–2 victory against Rapid București. Lucescu won the championship in his first two seasons with Dinamo, playing a total of three Divizia A games. He was loaned for the following two seasons to Divizia B club Știința București.
After the loan ended, he returned to play for The Red Dogs, winning the 1967–68 Cupa României, scoring a double in the 3–1 victory in the final against Rapid București after coach Bazil Marian sent him in the 77th minute to replace Nicolae Nagy. In the following three editions of the Cupa României, the club would reach the final in each of them, Lucescu scoring a brace in the 1971 final, but they were all lost to rivals Steaua București. Lucescu would also win another four league titles. In the first one he worked with coaches Nicolae Dumitru and Ionescu who gave him 23 appearances in which he scored three goals. In the following one Ion Nunweiller used him in 28 matches in which he netted a personal record of 12 goals. In the third edition, he scored four times in 31 games while working with Dumitru, and in the final one, he played 19 games, netting seven goals under Nunweiller's guidance. Lucescu had a total of 12 seasons spent at Dinamo, in which he appeared in 250 Divizia A games and scored 57 goals, including nine in the derby against Steaua.
During these years, Lucescu also played 15 games in which he scored three goals in European competitions (including three appearances in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup). He scored against each of the Madrid giants Real and Atlético in the European Cup, but on both occasions, Dinamo failed to advance past the Spanish sides. For the way he played in 1971, Lucescu was placed fourth in the ranking for the Romanian Footballer of the Year award, and in 1974, he was second.
In July 1977, Lucescu joined Corvinul Hunedoara, where he became the team's coach in January 1979, while still an active player. The team was relegated to Divizia B at the end of the season, but Lucescu remained with the club, helping it gain promotion back to the first division after just one year. He played a key role in helping the club finish third in the 1981–82 Divizia A season, retiring from playing at the end of that campaign to focus on his coaching career.
He came out of retirement while coaching Dinamo, as many of the team's players were called up to the Romania national team training camp to prepare for the 1990 World Cup. Thus, Lucescu registered himself as a player and on 16 May 1990, he entered the field in the 76th minute to replace Ionel Fulga in a 1–1 draw against Sportul Studențesc București. He was champion as both a player and a coach that season. At 44 years, 9 months and 17 days, he became the oldest player to appear in a Divizia A match, a competition in which he amassed a total of 362 matches and scored 78 goals.
Lucescu also received offers to play abroad. During the 1970s, he was linked with moves to foreign clubs but was prevented by the Romanian communist regime. In February 1970, while the national team toured Brazil for the Torneio Internacional do Rio de Janeiro, the president of Fluminense sent an official request to the Romanian authorities in May 1970 to sign Lucescu on loan. The offer was rejected, as the regime considered athletes national assets and political symbols, rarely allowing them to move abroad; footballers were seen as ambassadors of socialist success, expected to glorify Romania internationally while remaining under state control and prohibited from representing foreign clubs abroad. Lucescu was later linked with Turkish side Fenerbahçe on two occasions. In July 1971, he appeared in an All Stars testimonial match honoring Fenerbahçe legend Ogün Altıparmak, marking the club's initial interest in signing him. In August 1976, he wore a Fenerbahçe jersey in a friendly against Dnipropetrovsk; a formal transfer was reportedly agreed, but the authorities blocked the move.
Lucescu made a total of 64 appearances for Romania, serving as captain in 23 of them and scoring nine goals. He made his debut under coach Ilie Oană on 2 November 1966, in a 4–2 victory against Switzerland during the Euro 1968 qualifiers. In those qualifiers, he made a total of six appearances and scored two goals across the two victories against Cyprus. He earned his first 10 caps for the national team while playing at Divizia B level for Știința București.
Lucescu played six games in the successful 1970 World Cup qualifiers. He was used by coach Angelo Niculescu as captain in all three matches in the final tournament which were a win against Czechoslovakia and losses to defending champions England and eventual winners Brazil, as his side failed to progress from their group. For the last game against Brazil, Lucescu bought the team's blue equipment with his own money, because the Romanian Football Federation provided just one set of equipment which was yellow, the same color as the Brazilians. After that match, he exchanged shirts with Pelé.
He played seven matches and scored two goals during the 1972 Euro qualifiers, managing to reach the quarter-finals where Romania was defeated by Hungary, who advanced to the final tournament. In the following years, Lucescu played two games in the 1974 World Cup qualifiers, three matches in which he scored one goal in a 3–1 victory against Greece during the 1973–76 Balkan Cup and made six appearances in which he netted a goal in a 6–1 win over Denmark in the Euro 1976 qualifiers. He made his last appearance for the national team on 4 April 1979 in a 2–2 draw against Spain during the Euro 1980 qualifiers.
On 25 March 2008, for representing his country at the 1970 World Cup, Lucescu was decorated by then-president Traian Băsescu with the Ordinul "Meritul Sportiv" – (The Medal "The Sportive Merit") class III.
Lucescu learned many things about coaching from Viorel Mateianu, being very impressed by his working methods. He would go to study his training sessions at FC Baia Mare, sometimes asking Mateianu to extend them so he could see more of his methods. He would also go to his home where they would talk all night about football and draw tactical game schemes together.