Gavrilă Birău (also known as Gábor Bíró; 10 February 1945 – 16 March 2025) was a Romanian football player and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

. A

right-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

, he spent most of his career with

UTA Arad Asociația Fotbal Club UTA Arad (), commonly known as UTA Arad or simply UTA (''Uzina Textilă Arad''; ), is a Romanian professional football club based in the city of Arad, Arad County that competes in the Liga I. The team was founded in 1945 ...

Club career

Birău was born on 10 February 1945 in

Sfântu Gheorghe Sfântu Gheorghe (; or ''Szentgyörgy'' ; ; English lit.: ''Saint George'') is a city that serves as the seat of Covasna County in Transylvania, Romania. Located in the central part of the country, it lies on the Olt River in a valley between ...

, Romania and practised ice hockey, skiing, boxing and football until he was around the age of 18 when he started focusing only on football. He played junior level football at Textila Sfântu Gheorghe as a forward and in 1963 coach

Gheorghe Ola Gheorghe Ola (10 October 1928 – 1995) was a Romanian footballer and manager. Honours Manager Romania * UEFA European Under-18 Championship: 1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the w ...

called him up at a Romania youth team for a match against Turkey in which he was seen by

's coach

Nicolae Dumitrescu Nicolae "Coco" Dumitrescu (8 December 1921 – 17 March 1999) was a Romanian footballer and manager. As a footballer, he played mainly as a forward and throughout his career, he won four Divizia A titles and two cups with ITA Arad and as a man ...

who proposed he come to UTA and Birău accepted. Dumitrescu gave him his

Divizia A Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1 and officially known as SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Romania and the highest level of the Romanian football league system. Contested by 1 ...

debut on 14 March 1965 in a 1–0 home victory against Steagul Roșu Brașov, also from this point on his playing position was

. His first performance was reaching the

1966 Cupa României final The 1966 Cupa României Final was the 28th final of Romania's most prestigious football cup competition. It was disputed between Steaua București and UTA Arad, and was won by Steaua București after a game with 4 goals. It was the 7th cup fo ...

which was lost 4–0 to Steaua București, afterwards he won two consecutive titles, Dumitrescu using him 30 matches in both of these seasons, scoring a goal in the second one. Birău also made some European performances with ''The Old Lady'' as eliminating defending champions

Feyenoord Feyenoord Rotterdam () is a Netherlands, Dutch professional association football, football club based in Rotterdam, which plays in the Eredivisie, the top tier in Dutch football league system, Dutch football. Founded as Wilhelmina in 1908, the ...

in the

1970–71 European Cup The 1970–71 European Cup was the 16th season of the European Cup, UEFA's premier club football tournament. The competition was won by Ajax, who beat Panathinaikos in the final at Wembley Stadium in London, on 2 June 1971. It was the first time ...

and reaching the

1971–72 UEFA Cup The 1971–72 UEFA Cup was the inaugural season of the UEFA Cup, now known as the UEFA Europa League, which became the third club football competition organised by UEFA. The tournament retained the structure and format of the Inter-Cities Fairs C ...

quarter-finals where they were eliminated by

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as simply Tottenham (, , , ) or Spurs, is a professional Association football, football club based in Tottenham, North London, England. The club itself has stated that it should always ...

who would eventually win the competition. He spent 12 seasons at UTA, his last Divizia A match being a 3–2 away loss against ASA Târgu Mureș, having a total of 319 appearances and three goals scored in the competition, also making 14 appearances in European competitions. Birău retired after he spent a season in

Divizia B The Liga 2, most commonly 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 football season. It is currently sponsored by Casa Pariu ...

at Aurul Brad.

International career

In 1966, Birău made one appearance for Romania's under-23 team, a 3–3 draw against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Later life and death

After he ended his career, Birău coached teams from Arad like Strungul, Indagrara, CPL and also UTA on a few occasions, also he worked as a youth coach. A book about him was written by Radu Romănescu and Ionel Costin, called ''Gabi Birău – povestea fundașului de fier'' ''(Gabi Birău – the story of the iron defender)'', which was released on the occasion of his 73rd birthday. Birău died on 16 March 2025, at the age of 80.

Honours

UTA Arad *

: 1968–69, 1969–70 *

Cupa României The Cupa României () is a Association football, football cup competition for List of football clubs in Romania, Romanian teams which has been held annually since 1933–34 Cupa României, 1933–34, except during World War II. It is the Romania ...

runner-up: 1965–66

References

External links

*
Gavrilă Birău
at Labtof.ro {{DEFAULTSORT:Birau, Gavrila 1945 births 2025 deaths Romanian men's footballers Men's association football defenders Liga I players Liga II players FC UTA Arad players Romanian football managers FC UTA Arad managers Sportspeople from Sfântu Gheorghe Footballers from Covasna County 20th-century Romanian sportsmen