Nicolae Lupescu (17 December 1940 – 6 September 2017) was a Romanian football defender and manager.

Club career

Early career

Nicolae Lupescu was born on 17 December 1940 in Bucharest, Romania. He started to play football at junior level in 1954 at ICAR București, afterwards playing for Flacăra Roșie București, starting his senior career by playing two seasons in Divizia B, the first one at Academia Militară București and the second at Olimpia București.

Rapid București

He was eventually brought to Rapid București by coach Nicolae Roșculeț where he debuted in Divizia A on 16 September 1962 in a 4–2 victory against Farul Constanța. He remained with Rapid for ten seasons, winning the title in the 1966–67 season, being used by coach Valentin Stănescu in 26 matches in which he scored one goal. In the following season he played four games in the 1967–68 European Cup, helping The Railwaymen eliminate Trakia Plovdiv and advance to the following round where they were eliminated by Juventus. Lupescu also won two Balkans Cup and the 1971–72 Cupa României, being used all the minutes by coach Bazil Marian in the 2–0 win over Jiul Petroșani from the final. He played all the six games in the 1971–72 UEFA Cup campaign, as the team reached the eight-finals, eliminating Napoli and Legia Warsaw, being eliminated by the team who would eventually win the competition, Tottenham. For the way he played in 1970, Lupescu was placed fifth in the ranking for the Romanian Footballer of the Year award, in the following year being third.

Admira Wacker

During Romania's communist era, transfers of Romanian footballers outside the country were rarely allowed, but Lupescu convinced Ștefan Andrei who was the Secretary for Foreign Relations of the Central Committee to help him gain the regime's approval of his transfer at Admira Wacker in 1972 for which Rapid received 40.000$. He made his Austrian Bundesliga debut on 15 September 1972 under coach Ernst Ocwirk in a 0–0 against Austria Klagenfurt, the team finishing the season on the fourth place, which would be the best performance of the team in the championship during his five seasons spent there, also helping Admira eliminate Inter Milan in the 1973–74 UEFA Cup. Nicolae Lupescu has a total of 244 matches and eight goals scored in Divizia A, 134 games with nine goals scored in the Austrian Bundesliga and 16 appearances without scoring in European competitions.

International career

Nicolae Lupescu earned 20 caps and scored two goals for Romania, all under the guidance of coach Angelo Niculescu, making his debut on 25 June 1967 in a 1–0 home loss in front of Italy at the Euro 1968 qualifiers. Angelo Niculescu also used him in all the minutes of the three group matches from the 1970 World Cup final tournament as Romania did not advance to the next stage. He played eight matches and scored two goals at the 1972 Euro qualifiers, managing to reach the quarter-finals where Romania was defeated by Hungary, who advanced to the final tournament. Lupescu was also Romania's captain in a friendly against Netherlands which ended with a 2–0 loss and made his last appearance for the national team on 17 June 1972 in a friendly against Italy which ended 3–3. For representing his country at the 1970 World Cup, Lupescu was decorated by President of Romania Traian Băsescu on 25 March 2008 with the Ordinul "Meritul Sportiv" – (The Medal "The Sportive Merit") class III.

International goals

Personal life

He was the father of professional football player Ioan Lupescu. On 6 September 2017, Nicolae Lupescu died at the Fundeni hospital from Bucharest at age 76.

Honours

Player

Rapid București Individual

Manager

Gloria Buzău