Maybe you heard about him or maybe not... Today I will tell you his story. A story about the biggest romanian footballer, Gheorghe (Gică) Hagi.

Surnamed "The King of Romanian Football" or "Maradona of the Carpathians'' , Gheorghe Hagi was born on February 5th in Sacele village, 35 km away from Constanta. In Sacele Gică started playing soccer with a pork bladder, then with a ball made from horse hair by his grandfather (yeah, he was that poor), and only at the age of 6 he received a rubber ball from his mother.

Gheorghe Hagi began playing football at the age of 10 at Farul Constanţa the team where he also made his debut in the First Division at the age of 17. In his career, Hagi played at: Sportul Studenţesc, Steaua Bucharest, Real Madrid, Brescia, Barcelona and Galatasaray. On the national team, Hagi managed to play 125 times, scoring 35 goals.

Hagi's career as a professional (or semi-professional player - during the Socialist regime) can be divided into several periods:

  • 1978 - 1987: national debut and devotion: Gică Hagi began his footballer career at the Children's and Junior Team of Farul Constanţa where he was officially legitimate at the age of 13. Two years later, he is selected by the Federation to join the Luceafărul Bucharest team, which at that time was practically the National Junior team of Romania, the place where the greatest talents were formed. After two more years young Gică returns to Farul Constanța, fact which marked his debut in the First Division on September 11, 1982. A year later, he was transferred to Sportul Studenţesc. He will play here for the next four years, a period that marked his rise in the Romanian football rankings, being for two consecutive years the golgheter of First Division. On August 10, 1983, Hagi made his debut in the national team in a match played against Norway which ended with a white draw. Later he will be part of the national team who participated at Euro '84 in France. At Sportul Studențesc, where he plays the role of a "terrible child," Hagi makes some pretty sensational games, making a decisive contribution to the 1985 - 1986 season in winning the title of vice-champions (the best performance of the club till today) and also to the 3 consecutive qualificationsin to the UEFA Cup (1983-84, 1984-85, 1985-86).

  • 1987 - 1990: international dedication: In the winter of 1986/1987, Gheorghe Hagi was borrowed to the European champion from then, Steaua Bucharest, to be part of the team which was going to play the match against Dinamo Kiev in the Supercup of Europe. Although the initial contract was only for this match, after Hagi was the author of the only goal, he was never allowed to return to his old team. In the four years he spent at Steaua Bucharest, Gică Hagi has been definitively consecrated in international football. He won three champion titles with Steaua (1987, 1988 and 1989), 3 Romanian Cups in the same years and the Supercup of Europe in 1987. With Steaua he remained in the top of the teams in Europe, reaching to the UEFA European Championships semifinals in 1988, the team being eliminated by Benfica and the 1989 UEFA European Championships final, lost to the Italian AC Milan team (being named the second player as value in the competition after Marco van Basten). At the level of the national team, he participates with Romania in the 1990 World Cup from Italy.

  • 1990 - 1996: years of maturity: Hagi is the undisputed leader of the Romanian team and contributes decisively to the greatest successes in the history of the Romanian National Team. Hagi had signed just before the friendly match between Belgium and Romania, played in Brussels, almost three weeks before the start of the World Championship in Italy (May 1990), with Real Madrid, the transfer amount being 400 million pesetas, about 4 million dollars and becoming at that time the most expensive player in history bought by Real Madrid. He played 2 seasons in a team with many valuable players, such as Michel, Butragueno and Hierro, and he was wearing the shirt with number 10, which was given, especially then, to the most valuable player of the team. He was coached by John Toshack for only a few matches, followed by Alfredo Di Stefano and Radomir Antic the following year. The goal scored by Hagi from the middle of the field in the season 1990-1991 between Real Madrid vs. Osasuna was voted the most spectacular goal from a long distance from the readers of the Spanish daily Marca. In 1992 he was transferred to Brescia for 2.4 million dollars, where coach was Mircea Lucescu and in his team were also Hagi colleagues from the NationalTeam: Danuţ Lupu, Dorin Mateuţ, Ioan Sabău and Florin Răducioiu. In the first season of his comeback, the Italian team relegated to Serie B; but in the following season, Hagi helped the team promote to Serie A and win the Anglo-Italian Cup (1993-94). After the impressive performance at the 1994 World Championship in the US, the coach of Barcelona, ​​the Dutchman Johan Cruyff co-opted Hagi to Barcelona together with stars such as Stoicikov, Romario, Koeman or Guardiola. From 1995 he become teammate with Gica Popescu and Figo. He did not have a good relationship with Johan Cruyff, so he left to Galatasaray in 1996. After the 1994 World Championship, Hagi came out on the 4th place in the annual French Football Survey, which gave the Golden Balloon.

  • 1996 - 2001: Turkey's resounding success and retreat. Gică is transferred to Galatasaray Istanbul, the team where he will have the greatest football success, gaining huge popularity among Turkish supporters. He won 4 championship titles (1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99, 1999-00), 2 Turkish Cups (1998-99, 1999-00) and Turkey Supercup twice (1996, 1997), and in the year 2000 will lead the team to win the UEFA Cup under the command of Fatih Terim (in the final of the game he was eliminated in the 94th minute for a kick with the elbow on Tony Adams) and Supercup of Europe, with Mircea Lucescu on the bench, unmatched performances in the history of turkish football. The 2000/2001 season will be the his last one as an active footballer. Hagi scored a fabulous goal in the victory of the Turks with the French at Monaco, a match played in that Champions League season. The success was voted by the UEFA poll in the top of the most beautiful executions in the history of European cups. After the match Galatasaray - Trabzonspor: 4 - 0 (last round of the Championship of Turkey), where he scored two goals, he retires. He became an idol for Turkish fans, chanting his name even after retreating from football and singing a famous song, "I love you Hagi."

In 2009 Hagi founded Romanian club Viitorul Constanța, with which he won the title in the season 2016/2017.  He is currently the owner, the chairman and the coach of the club. Hagi also established the Gheorghe Hagi Football Academy, one of the largest and most successful football academies in Southeastern Europe.

Most of the informations about Gică Hagi's career was taken from wikipedia.ro and some newspapers from Romania.

Do you know something about Hagi? What about other Romanian footballers? Gheorghe Popescu? Dan Petrescu? Miodrag Belodedici? Adrian Mutu? Cristian Chivu? Cosmin Contra? Răzvan Raț? Adrian Ilie?

Leave a comment if you know someone and maybe I will write another article about him.

Thanks for reading!