Mihai Ivăncescu

Mihai Ivăncescu (22 March 1942 – 1 February 2004) was a Romanian footballer who played as a right back for two Brașov teams, Steagul and Tractorul.^[2][3]

Mihai Ivăncescu

Personal information
Date of birth	22 March 1942
Place of birth	Adâncata, Romania
Date of death	1 February 2004(2004-02-01) (aged 61)
Place of death	Brașov, Romania
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Right back
Youth career
1956–1961	Steagul Roșu Brașov
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1961–1962	Steagul Roșu Brașov	12	(2)
1962–1964	Tractorul Brașov
1964–1973	Steagul Roșu Brașov	227	(11)
1973–1975	Tractorul Brașov[a]	31	(0)
Total		270	(13)
International career
1967–1968	Romania	3	(0)
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

Club career

Mihai Ivăncescu was born on 22 March 1942 in Adâncata, Romania.^[1][4] He started to play football at junior level in 1956, aged 14 at Steagul Roșu Brașov.^[1][4] He made his Divizia A debut, playing for Steagul on 24 September 1961 under coach Silviu Ploeșteanu in a 2–1 home victory against Dinamo București.^[1][4] After one season and a half he went to play at neighboring Brașov team, Tractorul in Divizia B.^[1][4] He returned at Steagul in 1964, where he would remain for the following nine seasons, the highlights of this period being a fourth place in the 1964–65 Divizia A season and four games played in the 1965–66 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup as the club eliminated NK Zagreb, but got eliminated in the following round by Espanyol Barcelona against whom he scored two goals.^[1][4] Also at end of the 1967–68 Divizia A season, the club relegated to Divizia B, but Ivăncescu stayed with the club, promoting back to the first division after one year.^[1][4] He played his last Divizia A match on 28 April 1973 in a 1–0 home loss in front of Dinamo, a competition in which he has a total of 209 appearances with 13 goals scored.^[1][4] Afterwards, Ivăncescu returned to play in Divizia B for the last two seasons of his career at Tractorul Brașov and on 6 April 1976 on the Tractorul stadium he had his retirement match, playing the first round for Tractorul and the second for Steagul.^[1][4]

International career

Ivăncescu played three friendly games at international level for Romania, all of them being draws and all under the guidance of coach Angelo Niculescu, making his debut on 24 December 1967 in a 1–1 against DR Congo, his following two games being a 1–1 with Austria and a 0–0 against Netherlands.^[5][6] He was a member of Steagul Roșu Brașov's "Mexican trio", alongside Stere Adamache and Nicolae Pescaru who were part of Romania's 1970 Mexico World Cup squad, but he did not play in the tournament.^[2][5][7][8]

Refereeing career

After he retired, Ivăncescu became a football referee, including arbitrating matches in the Romanian top-division, Divizia A.^[7][9][10]

Death

Ivăncescu died on 1 February 2004 at age 61 at the Brașov county hospital.^[9]

Honours

Steagul Roșu Brașov

• Divizia B: 1968–69^[1]

Notes

1. The statistics for the 1974–75 Divizia B season are unavailable.^[1]