It all happened after he suffered a heart attack last week and has been in an induced coma ever since.
Despite the doctors' efforts, his condition worsened.
Lucescu could be said to have been devoted to football until the very end of his life. Just a few days before his heart attack, as coach, he led the Romanian national team in a playoff for a place in the World Cup against Turkey in Istanbul (1:0).
Lucescu was one of the most dominant figures in Romanian club football for a period of 20 years. From 1963 to 1977, he was a member of Dinamo Bucharest, and then of the then-powerful Corvinul – where he also coached. He won six titles with Dinamo, and it was thanks to him that Corvinul first reached the UEFA Cup from the Romanian second division.
He played a total of 65 matches for the Romanian national team from 1966 to 1979.
However, it seems that he left an even deeper mark as a coach, during an impressive career that lasted a full 48 years.
He was the coach of Romania on two occasions – from 1981 to 1986, and from 2024 until this month. He was also the coach of Turkey from 2017 to 2019.
Serie A fans from the 1990s remember him as an indispensable figure – he managed Inter, Brescia, Reggiana, Pisa…
He won one Romanian championship title each with Dinamo and Rapid Bucharest, and then part of his career in Turkey followed – he won the European Super Cup with Galatasaray, and the Turkish Super League with Besiktas.
However, a particularly impressive chapter in his career relates to his stint with Shakhtar Donetsk, which lasted a full 12 years – from 2004 to 2016.
Under Lucescu's coaching staff, a European giant was created in eastern Ukraine. The 'Miners' from the Donbas Arena won the UEFA Cup and eight Ukrainian championship titles during that time, among other things.
He would later win the Ukrainian championship as the head coach of Shakhtar's biggest rival - Dynamo Kyiv.
It was after finishing his work at Dinamo that he would once again become the coach of Romania, which, as it turned out, was the last chapter of a great, unforgettable career. A life dedicated to football.
