Gheorghe Hagi, star Romanian footballer and the undisputed “King” of Romanian football, celebrated his 60th birthday on Wednesday.
Former Romanian captain and coach, played a record 223 matches, scoring 141 goals, and won three championship titles and three Romanian Cups during his outstanding 19-year career as a footballer.
The was Romania’s top scorer twice, in the 1984/1985 and 1985/1986 seasons, and is widely regarded internationally as the best player the country has ever produced,
After communism ended, he played for Real Madrid (1990-1992, 19 goals in 64 games) and FC Barcelona (1994-1996, 7 goals in 36 games). In-between, he played for Italy’s Brescia (1992-1994).
From 1996 to 2001, Hagi played for Galatasaray Istanbul, with whom he won four league titles and two Turkish Cups, a UEFA Cup and the European Super Cup.
He took part in three European Championships (1984, 1996 and 2000) and in three World Cups (1990, 1994 and 1998). In 1999, he was named the Romanian footballer of the century.
Foreign media called him ‘the Maradona of the Carpathians.’
Hagi went on a prophetic rant to the media in 1998, unhappy with the criticism the national team was receiving at home.
“We deserve statues for what we did over the past 10 years,” he railed. “You’ll see that in two or three years Romanian football will die. Zero!”
With Hagi starring in midfield, Romania went on to beat England in the group stages of the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000, reaching the knockout stages in both tournaments.
When Hagi turned manager, the Romanians lost the qualification play-offs for the 2002 World Cup in Slovenia. As Hagi had predicted, it was over.
Immediately after retirement, Hagi became coach of the Romanian national team in 2001. In 2003, he became the coach of the Turkish team Bursaspor, and in the 2004-2005 season he was on the technical bench of Galatasaray Istanbul. In 2006 he returned to Romania, to Poli Timişoara, but he left shortly afterwards.
After a one-year break, Hagi took over Steaua, but the mandate lasted less than three months, during which he qualified the team in the Champions League groups. In October 2010, Hagi began his second term at Galatasaray where he stayed until March 25, 2011.
Between September 2014 and August 1, 2020, Gheorghe Hagi was manager of the senior team FC Viitorul Constanţa.
Hagi invested more than 10 million euros from the money he earned as a player to start an academy from scratch near Constanța, his hometown.
“Football gave me everything and I want to give something back. We have incredible talent, we just need to do the right thing with it,” Hagi said in 2009 when he started the project on a pasture where he had no electricity or running water.
He also needed to build a road because access by car was impossible
He refused the position of coach of Romania in 2021, preferring to remain coach and owner of Farul Constanţa.
In the 2022/2023 season, Farul Constanţa won the title of champion of Romania.
Gheorghe Hagi is married to Marilena and has two children: Kira, who is an actress, and Ianis, who plays for Glasgow Rangers.
