Football Ground Map
Football Ground Map
You must go back to August 1994 to find the appearance of the first Romanian players in the English Premier League. Interestingly, two Romanian players appeared in the same match as Sheffield Wednesday and Tottenham Hotspur played out a seven goal thriller at Hillsborough.
Dan Petrescu played for Sheffield Wednesday and scored in the 54th minute, becoming the first Romanian player to find the back of the net in the Premier League. However, Ilie Dumitrescu went away with the victory as the Romanian midfielder played for Tottenham Hotspur, who took maximum points thanks to a 4-3 win.
Petrescu enjoyed a long and successful career playing in English football. The full back not only played for Sheffield Wednesday but also Chelsea, Bradford City, and Southampton. During his time in the Premier League, Petrescu won both the FA Cup and League Cup with Chelsea. Petrescu also tasted success with Chelsea in Europe, winning the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup, making the former Steaua Bucuresti man one of the best Romanian players to grace the Premier League.
Dumitrescu moved from Tottenham Hotspur to West Ham United in 1996 but he suffered problems with his work permit which meant he was available to move on a free transfer to Club America in Mexico.
During the same period of time Dumitrescu was at Spurs, his fellow countryman, Gheorghe Popescu arrived at White Hart Lane. Popescu played 23 times in the Premier League, helping Spurs to a seventh place finish before moving to Barcelona after only one season at the club.
Florin Raducioiu was another of the celebrated Romanian 1994 World Cup team to arrive in the Premier League having signed for West Ham United in 1996. Despite scoring a goal against Manchester United, Raducioiu never seemed to settle in English football and although his talent was obvious, the striker returned to Espanyol in Spain.
In terms of strikers, Adrian Mutu was regarded as one of the best up and coming strikers in the game when the Romanian joined Chelsea from Parma for a fee of around £15.8m. Mutu scored the winning goal for Chelsea on his debut against Leicester City and netted 4 goals in his first three games for the club. Problems started following the arrival of Jose Mourinho and a positive drug test for cocaine in September 2004.
Viorel Moldovan played for Coventry City in 1998 having started his career at Gloria Bistrita, his hometown club in northern Transylvania. Known as the land of Dracula and vampires, you may be tempted to try your luck on the vampire themed slots at Platincasino. Hopefully you will be more successful than Moldovan, who despite enjoying a good career as a striker, scoring plenty of goals, did not find his top form at Coventry City.
Some of the other leading Romanian players to feature in the Premier League include Costel Pantilimon, Ionel Ganea, Vlad Chiriches, Cosmin Contra, Florin Andone, Florin Gardos, Razvan Rat, and Gabriel Tamas.
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