Mircea Lucescu has died, football master.

Born in Bucharest on July 29, 1945, thirty-six trophies, raised while leading eight different teams and many modern and revolutionary ideas passed away yesterday at the age of 80

Culture and football? For Mircea, it was an essential combination; it is certain that for him, the trip was not just about arriving by bus at a stadium and kicking a leather ball. There was a museum to visit, a square, an installation. Almost a sort of mental refinement for the match, which rang the alarm in a world where closures are rampant. Like when talking to him about tactics and mentioning a 4-4-2, he would deflect the question by specifying that he trains ideas. Creative brushstrokes. As a player, he played with Dinamo Bucharest, where he won five Romanian championship titles. In Italy, he started in Pisa, under the tower, where the far-sighted and volcanic Romeo Anconetani signed him, and we are precisely in 1990, but it was immediately fraught with challenges and difficulties in communicating his beliefs when relegation arrived. The comeback came quickly, with the swallows of Brescia, where he stayed until 1996, and here the role of the visionary emerged despite the rather fluctuating results, with the fortune of building his happy football utopia with a beacon named Roberto Baggio, not just a passing figure. After Brescia came Reggiana, but the impending twilight was understood. With his exit in 1998, where in Milan he resigned from Inter before the end of the season, after a defeat against Manchester in the quarter-finals of the cup and a collapse in the league with Sampdoria. Departures that never completely leave a bitter taste, so great is the human and cultural vision that Mircea offers with every bench. After Italy, it was Turkey’s turn, with Galatasaray and Besiktas, where he scored in various leagues, while in Ukraine, here comes the delta with Shakhtar Donetsk and plenty of Champions League, 100 appearances that followed, then the numerous championships won, crowned by a UEFA Cup in 2009. Finally, the sunset, through Zenit, Turkey in the national team, and his most intimate bench, that of his beloved Romania. Where Mircea Lucescu leaves us, perhaps without having had, at least for us in Italy, the time, the opportunity to fully admire him, beyond mastery and genius, the gentle restlessness and his innate charisma. Bench after bench, thought after thought.

Photo Credit by Wikipedia

Instacult by Mauro Lama