Petru Șchiopu (28 April 1947 – 10 October 2014) was a

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

n football

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

Club career

Petru Șchiopu was born on 28 April 1947 in

Pecica Pecica (; ; ; /''Pečka'') is a town in Arad County, western Romania. In ancient times it was a Dacian fortress called Ziridava and today it is an important archeological site.Barbara Ann Kipfer, ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology'', p.428. ...

, starting to play football at

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 ...

, making 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 2 May 1966 in a 1–1 with Știința Craiova. Under the guidance of 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 ...

he helped ''The Old Lady'' win two consecutive titles, at the first contributing with six goals scored in 27 appearances and in the second he played 19 games, scoring two times. He also played in two

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

editions, making one appearance in each of them against

Legia Warsaw Legia Warszawa (), commonly referred to as Legia Warsaw or simply Legia, is a professional football club based in Warsaw, Poland. Legia is the most successful Polish football club in history, winning a record 15 champions titles, a record 2 ...

and

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club), commonly referred to as Crvena zvezda () and colloquially referred to as Red Star Belgrade in anglophone media, is a ...

, UTA losing both games. In the middle of the 1970–71 season, Șchiopu left UTA to go play 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 ...

for Bihor Oradea which he helped promote to the first league but relegated after one season. After spending one more season with Bihor in the second league, he went one on to have several spells at Divizia B clubs, starting with one season at

Mureșul Deva Club Sportiv Municipal Deva, commonly known as CSM Deva, is a Romanian professional football (soccer), football football team, club based in Deva, Romania, Deva, Hunedoara County. The club was originally established in 1921 under the name of ''M ...

, then in 1975 he went at Corvinul Hunedoara where in his first season, Șchiopu scored a personal record of 15 goals, in the second managing nine which helped the club promote to the first league but he stayed in second league football, returning to Deva for one year, afterwards moving to Victoria Călan and Aurul Brad. In 1980 he returned for a second spell at UTA, who was in Divizia B, scoring seven goals to help the club promote to the first league where on 2 September 1981 he made his last Divizia A appearance, playing for ''The Old Lady'' in a 1–1 with Sportul Studențesc București, having a total of 127 matches with 19 goals scored in the competition. Petru Șchiopu completely ended his career in 1983 after playing one more season in Divizia B at Strungul Arad.

International career

In the late 1960s, Petru Șchiopu made several appearances for Romania's under-23 side.

Death

Petru Șchiopu died on 10 October 2014 at age 67.

Honours

UTA Arad *

: 1968–69, 1969–70 *

: 1980–81 Bihor Oradea *

: 1970–71 Corvinul Hunedoara *

: 1975–76

References

External links

Petru Șchiopu
at Labtof.ro {{DEFAULTSORT:Șchiopu, Petru 1947 births 2014 deaths Romanian men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Liga I players Liga II players FC UTA Arad players FC Bihor Oradea (1958) players CSM Deva players FC Corvinul Hunedoara players People from Pecica Footballers from Arad County 20th-century Romanian sportsmen