Mircea Lucescu, the most titled Romanian coach in history, died on Tuesday evening, April 7, 2026, at the Bucharest Emergency University Hospital. He was 80 years old. The news was officially announced by the hospital, which said that the death was declared around 20:30.
“Mr. Mircea Lucescu was one of the most successful Romanian football coaches and players, the first to qualify the Romanian national team for a European Championship in 1984,” the University Hospital said in the official statement. The technician’s health problems had worsened in recent weeks, against the backdrop of older heart conditions. It all started with episodes of repeated arrhythmias, then followed an acute myocardial infarction suffered at the end last week and the emergency transfer to Intensive Care.
A record with 37 trophies, won in four countries
The career of “Il Luce” counts almost 40 official trophies and more than 1,000 matches on the technical bench, in five different decades. He won championships in Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia, and in 2009 he won the UEFA Cup with Shakhtar Donetsk, the first major European trophy in the history of the Ukrainian club. Also there, for 12 years, he collected eight championship titles, six cups and seven supercups.
Premier League link: Fernandinho, Willian, Douglas Costa
For UK readers, Lucescu’s legacy is directly visible on Premier League pitches. Shakhtar Donetsk launched a whole generation of Brazilians who became stars in the English championship: Fernandinho, who won five league titles with Manchester City, Willian, who ended up at Chelsea, and Douglas Costa. Also from Lucescu, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Teixeira left for big football.
Lucescu began his playing career at Dinamo Bucharest, where he won five Romanian championship titles, and captained the national team at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico in a historic match against Pelé’s Brazil. As a coach, he became Romania’s youngest coach at just 36 years old and led the national team to EURO 1984, Romania’s first qualification for a final European tournament in 14 years.
He was back in charge of the national team in 2024, after nearly four decades, and ended his tenure shortly before his retirement after the World Cup play-off failure.
His son, Răzvan Lucescu, coach at PAOK Thessaloniki, arrived in Bucharest in the last few days, after his father’s condition worsened.
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