Florin Daniel Bratu (born 2 January 1980) is a Romanian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

coach and former player, who played as

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

Club career

Bratu began his career with

Rapid Bucharest Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a '' cascade' ...

, but shortly after joining the first team, he was loaned to

Tractorul Brașov Tractorul Brașov was a football team from Brașov, Brașov County, Romania. History Tractorul Brașov was founded in 1927 under the name of IAR Brașov (Industria Aeronautică Română Brașov) (English: Romanian Aeronautic Industry Brașov). Th ...

in 2000. At Tractorul he scored eight goals in 27

Divizia B The Liga 2, most often spelled as Liga II, is the second level of the Romanian football league system. The league changed its name from Divizia B just before the start of the 2006–07 Liga II, 2006–07. It is currently Sponsor (commercial), sp ...

games, before returning to Rapid Bucharest. In the 2002–03 season he won the

Divizia A The Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1, is a Romanian professional league for men's association football clubs. Currently sponsored by betting company Superbet, it is officially known as the SuperLiga. It is the country's top ...

title with Rapid, being the team's top-goalscorer with 11 goals. In 2003, Turkish club

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club'') is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Most notable for its association football department, the club also consists of various other de ...

announced that they had reached an agreement with Rapid for the transfer of Bratu with the player agreeing to a four-year deal and Galatasaray paying Rapid $2,75 million. In the 2007–08 season he was signed by

Dinamo București A dynamo is a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator. Dynamo or Dinamo may also refer to: Places * Dinamo (Moscow Metro), a station of the Moscow Metro, Moscow, Russia * Dinamo (Yekaterinburg Metro), a station of the Yekaterin ...

from Nantes Atlantique and formed a couple in Dinamo's offence with

Ionel Dănciulescu Ionel Daniel Dănciulescu (born 6 December 1976) is a Romanian former professional footballer who played as a forward. He holds the all-time record for the most competitive appearances in Liga I, with 515 games played over the course of twenty ...

. The Romanian press called them "BD in action", a nickname inspired from the first letters of their family name and the Romanian movie "BD in action". In the summer of 2010 Bratu joined

Litex Lovech Litex ( bg, Литекс) is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Lovech, which currently competes in the Second League. The club was founded in 1921 as Hisarya Sports Club. The club's home ground is the Gradski Stadion ...

on loan where he stayed until December of the same year. In January 2011, he signed for

Liga I The Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1, is a Romanian professional league for men's association football clubs. Currently sponsored by betting company Superbet, it is officially known as the SuperLiga. It is the country's top ...

team Gaz Metan Mediaș. He played only 11 games for Gaz Metan, seven of them from the first minute and four as a substitute, and scored a goal, in August 2011, against Voința Sibiu. In summer of 2012, Bratu signed a one-year contract with Gloria Bistrița, where he spent a few months before announcing his retirement.

International career

Bratu played 14 games and scored two goals at international level for

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, making his debut on 12 February 2003 when coach

Anghel Iordănescu Anghel Iordănescu (; born 4 May 1950), also known as "Tata Puiu", is a Romanian former footballer and former manager of the Romania national team, who played as a forward. In 2007, Iordănescu retired from football, and the following Februar ...

sent him on the field in order to replace

Adrian Mutu Adrian Mutu (; born 8 January 1979) is a Romanian professional football manager and former player, who is in charge of Liga I club Rapid București. During his playing career, he was deployed as a forward or an attacking midfielder. Mutu starte ...

in the 90+2 minute of a friendly against

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

which ended with a 2–1 victory. He scored his first goal in a friendly which ended with a 1–0 victory against

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. Bratu played four games and scored one goal in a 4–0 victory against

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

at the Euro 2004 qualifiers. He also played in one game at the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, one at the Euro 2008 qualifiers and two at the 2010 World Cup qualifiers.

International goals

:''Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Bratu goal''.

After retirement

Since retiring from football in the middle of the 2012–13 season, Bratu has gone into punditry and worked for a while as a commentator for

Digi Sport (Romania) Digi Sport is a Romanian sports television that was launched on 23 July 2009, available only on the Digi TV platform. It is offered as a set of sports channels, called Digi Sport 1, Digi Sport 2, Digi Sport 3 and Digi Sport 4. On 23 November 2018 ...

. In March 2014, Bratu became the head of the scouting department at his former club

Coaching career

In August 2014, Bratu started his coaching career as head coach of the second team at

Dinamo II București A dynamo is a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator. Dynamo or Dinamo may also refer to: Places * Dinamo (Moscow Metro), a station of the Moscow Metro, Moscow, Russia * Dinamo (Yekaterinburg Metro), a station of the Yekaterinb ...

. On 25 February 2018, he was appointed head coach of Dinamo București. He was sacked in September 2018. On 9 August 2021, he was named the head coach of Romania U-21.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Rapid București *

Romanian League The Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1, is a Romanian professional league for men's association football clubs. Currently sponsored by betting company Superbet, it is officially known as the SuperLiga. It is the country's top ...

: 2002–03 *

Romanian Cup Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language ** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...

: 2001–02 *

Romanian Supercup Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

Dinamo București *

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

Litex Lovech *

Bulgarian Supercup The Bulgarian Supercup ( bg, Суперкупа на България) is the trophy won in a football match held between the football club that has won the Bulgarian first football division in the season that ended in the year of the match and ...

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bratu, Florin 1980 births Living people Footballers from Bucharest Association football forwards Romanian footballers Romania international footballers FC Rapid București players Galatasaray S.K. footballers FC Dinamo București players FC Nantes players Valenciennes FC players PFC Litex Lovech players CS Gaz Metan Mediaș players Liga I players Liga II players Süper Lig players Ligue 1 players First Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players Romanian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Turkey Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Turkey Expatriate footballers in France Romanian expatriate sportspeople in France Expatriate footballers in Bulgaria Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Bulgaria Romanian football managers FC Dinamo București managers CS Aerostar Bacău managers AFC Turris-Oltul Turnu Măgurele managers CS Concordia Chiajna managers