Mircea Lucescu is fighting two battles at once — one for Romania, one against his own body

Mircea Lucescu has been through it all. At the ripe old age of 80, the current Romania men’s national team head coach has been a part of thousands of games in his career, whether it be as a flamboyant winger in his playing days, or as one of the most decorated managers of all time.

However, Lucescu is currently at that age where he is waging a battle against two adversaries. On one hand, he is on the verge of playing two games that could very well define his career, even one that has seen him win almost everything there is to win.

Two play-off games, starting with the semi-final against Türkiye on Thursday, stand in the way of the Tricolorii making their first World Cup appearance in 28 years.

However, it is the second battle that seems to be taking a much bigger toll on him. At 80, Lucescu has not been in the best of health, and has been admitted to hospital on three separate occasions since last December with an illness he has refused to elaborate on, not letting his condition take precedence over the fortunes of the Romanian national team.

Such is his dedication and passion that Lucescu still refuses to lay down, continuing to coach his side with the unbridled enthusiasm and love that he has for the game and for his country. The moment the doctors declared that he could coach, safe to say that there was no turning back for Romanian football’s Grand Old Man.

He would have graciously stepped back had there been an alternative, but after conversations with the Romanian Football Federation made it clear that there wasn’t any, he set his focus on what he can do in the best interest of his beloved country.

Lucescu has journeyed through a whole gamut of different emotions. As a player, he captained Romania at the 1970 World Cup. Under his leadership, and in a group that contained Pelé’s Brazil, defending champions England, and Czechoslovakia, they made a huge impression on the big stage. A win against Czechoslovakia and two evenly fought but narrow defeats against Brazil and England brought Romanian football to the world, and many believe that their style of play was the benchmark for Pep Guardiola’s “tiki-taka”, which has brought unprecedented success.

As manager, this is the second time that Lucescu has taken the reins of the Romanian national team, having returned in 2024, 38 years after his first stint ended in 1986. He took the job this time around as a matter of duty to his national team. He has had the experience of building the team from the ground up. After leaving in 1986, the team that he built went on to play in three successive World Cups in 1990, 1994, and 1998, while also playing in two European Championships in 1996 and 2000.

His reasoning for taking the Romanian job was rather simple: he wanted to give back to Romanian football once again, helping them in any way possible. In short, he wants to take Romania back to the World Cup, something he narrowly failed to achieve back in 1986.

He knows the job at hand is tough, and his health means that he has been on and off on the coaching side of things. But he has not been sitting idle. He has been keeping watch on Türkiye and analysing their games at length from the confines of his hospital bed. And he is well aware of the surroundings that will welcome his Romania side at the Tüpras Stadium in Istanbul, home to Besiktas.

“We will play in front of an impossible atmosphere. I know it to perfection: Besiktas’s home stadium. When I left the club I had two more years left of my contract but I left the money to the club with the firm commitment that they would use it to rebuild the stadium. It’s one of the best stadiums I’ve ever been to. When the other team has the ball they put the pressure on. And it’s an extraordinary pressure. I don’t know if there’s any remedy for the noise they will create. I will need to explain to my boys, to those who haven’t been to play in Turkey, what awaits them,” said Lucescu of his opponents in a rare interview he gave to The Guardian.

His side’s own build-up to the contest has been far from plain sailing, having been hit with player withdrawals and injuries to key players who would be shoo-ins to start the game. But Lucescu is not looking for handouts, sympathy, or an easy way out of this. He is not feeling down or out at all. “I hope that my players treat this game as a moment to mark a before and after. It can define a generation. It would be an extraordinary achievement to reach the World Cup. Not for me, but for Romania.”

Romania and Lucescu are on the cusp of something special. The Grand Old Man of Romanian football has won almost everything. Taking his beloved country to the World Cup will be sweeter than everything he has achieved in his career, and that is worth the battle that he is fighting right now.