Viorel Mateianu

Viorel Mateianu (1 June 1938 Ã¢ÂÂ 25 November 1997) was a Romanian football player and coach.

Club career

Mateianu was born on 1 June 1938 in LipÃÂneÃÂti, Prahova, Romania and began playing football in the Romanian lower leagues for FlacÃÂra BoldeÃÂti and Progresul CPCS BucureÃÂti. He made his Divizia A debut under coach Ioan LupaÃÂ on 25 August 1957, playing for Progresul BucureÃÂti in a 3Ã¢ÂÂ2 victory in which he scored a goal against Energia PetroÃÂani. Shortly afterwards, Mateianu was nicknamed "Little Alfredo Di StÃÂ©fano".

In 1957, during a football tournament held in San SebastiÃÂ¡n, Spain where he participated with one of Romania's youth teams, Mateianu had an offer to play for Real Madrid. However, he declined it, not wanting to risk to never seeing his parents again, as he could have not been allowed to return to the country by the communist regime.

In 1958 he joined ÃÂtiinÃÂa Cluj for three and a half seasons, during which he scored 21 goals in 72 Divizia A appearances, and also graduated the Faculty of Law. Then he joined Steaua BucureÃÂti where under coach Gheorghe Popescu he won the 1961Ã¢ÂÂ62 Cupa RomÃÂ¢niei, opening the score in the 5Ã¢ÂÂ1 victory in the final against Rapid BucureÃÂti.

In the middle of the 1962Ã¢ÂÂ63 season, he returned to Progresul BucureÃÂti where he spent eight seasons. During his stay at The Bankers, the team was relegated twice to Divizia B, but Mateianu stayed with the club each time, helping it get promoted back to the first division. On 15 June 1969 he made his last Divizia A appearance in Progresul's 1Ã¢ÂÂ0 away loss to Farul ConstanÃÂa, totaling 220 matches played with 62 goals in the competition. Subsequently, he was allowed by the communist authorities to play in West Germany at TUS Wannsee Berlin and Alemannia Aachen where he ended his playing career.

International career

Between 1957 and 1961, Mateianu made several appearances for Romania's under-23 and B teams.

He played six games and scored two goals for Romania, making his debut under coach Augustin Botescu in the 1960 European Nations' Cup quarter-finals where they were defeated by Czechoslovakia, who advanced to the final tournament. Mateianu played three games and scored two goals in wins over Turkey and Czechoslovakia during the 1966 World Cup qualifiers. He made his last appearance for the national team in a friendly that ended with a 2Ã¢ÂÂ0 loss against East Germany.

International goals

Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Mateianu goal.

Managerial career

In 1973, just a few months after returning from West Germany where he graduated from a coaching course, Mateianu was given the role of head coach at his former club, Progresul BucureÃÂti, then playing in Divizia B. He helped them get promoted back to Divizia A in the 1975Ã¢ÂÂ76 season, being dismissed in the beginning of the following season.

He went to coach Divizia B team Baia Mare in 1976 and with a team he formed mostly with local players from MaramureÃÂ County, Mateianu earned promotion in Divizia A, where the team finished twice in fourth place. During his period spent at Baia Mare, Mateianu became known for his coaching innovations, having many tactical schemes to which he gave names like MoriÃÂca ("The Hand-Mill") in which the strikers and midfielders swap places during the game, being considered an early form of tiki-taka. Other examples include Momeala mare ("The Big bait"), Momeala micÃÂ ("The Little bait"), CÃÂciula ("The Hat"), Paralelogramul ("The Parallelogram"), Americana ("The American"), Fundul de sac ("The bottom of the bag") or ÃÂarpele ("The Snake"). He also believed that the best football practice was to play football. That is why, unlike other clubs that organized long training camps and mountain training sessions during season breaks, he had his team play many friendly games. Mircea Lucescu was very impressed by Mateianu's working methods. He came to study his training sessions, sometimes asking Mateianu to extend the sessions to observe 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.

However, after he left Baia Mare, Mateianu's career suffered a downfall, experiencing an unsuccessful second spell at Progresul BucureÃÂti, and two stints at Divizia B team Dacia Unirea BrÃÂila where he failed on both occasions to get promoted to the first league. Subsequently, he earned a modest 12th place in the 1982Ã¢ÂÂ83 Divizia A season with Petrolul PloieÃÂti and suffered a relegation to Divizia B with Jiul PetroÃÂani.

In 1988, Mateianu's last coaching stint was with Bihor Oradea. That September, during a controversial match against Steaua BucureÃÂti, club officials instructed him to lose, but he declined. Bihor held a 2Ã¢ÂÂ1 halftime lead, yet Steaua ultimately won 3Ã¢ÂÂ2 after scoring twice in the second half. The decisive goal came in extra time, leading to widespread belief that the referee had intentionally prolonged the game by an uncommon six minutes to aid Steaua. In November 1988, Mateianu suffered a stroke after which he retired from coaching, many people believing that the stress caused by the game against Steaua was the cause of it. However, his wife Mihaela dismissed that idea, claiming that Mateianu had previously suffered a minor stroke in 1983. He suffered another stroke in 1994 after which he was unable to move, staying at home until his death on 25 November 1997. On 25 September 2009, he posthumously received the Honorary Citizen of Baia Mare title, and also the town's stadium is named after him. Mateianu has a total of 176 matches as a manager in the Romanian top-division, Divizia A, consisting of 70 victories, 25 draws and 81 losses.