GSP remakes Piţurcă’s coach portrait with the help of five former players

### Piţi’s other face: what rules he imposed in the cabin, how he behaved in the breaks, what annoyed him at the trainings and how he prepared the matches

### GSP remakes Piţurcă’s coach portrait with the help of some of his former players: Trică, Neaga, Paraschiv, Marius Baciu and Miu


Six years. This is the time that has passed since Victor Piţurcă left from Ghencea. From that team only Petre Marin resisted. As for the rest, Piţi is unknown for the players, for the leading, for the members of the technical and medical staff, and perhaps also for the supporters. Gsp remakes today the portrait of the technician beyond the things we could see at the matches. Those who composed the puzzle are 5 former players from Piţi’s previous mandate.


LOCKER ROOM
The law on the wall, the fine was paid immediately
How tough is Piţurcă? Narrates Eugen Trică: "He used to write the rules on a sheet of paper which he stuck in the locker room. Those principles were not negotiated, he decided the rules and he also applied them. When someone made a mistake, he was immediately surcharged! And you couldn’t say that you would pay when you take the salary or a gratification. Immediately or the next day you had to bring the money, otherwise you couldn’t come at the training! Do you think that someone dared not to respect the rules?".

"Not even Messi, if he had been Piţurcă’s player he wouldn’t dare to comment something at the trainings"
Eugen Trică


He is always level-headed in the break
How did Piţurcă behave in the two halves of the match when the team arrived in the cabin? Reveals Sorin Paraschiv, the one whom Piţi promoted from Steaua’s juniors team and he offered the debut in Ghencea: "He was always peaceful and he has never exaggerated with respect to the reproaches. He reprimanded you on civilized tone, he said that it was useless to make preasure when the game was not good or the result was not favorable".


TRAININGS

The moods, with name and surname
How were the trainings under Piţi’s command? Remembers Rică Neaga, whom Piţurcă brought at Steaua from FC Argeş even without the agreement of brothers Becali: "We knew how to behave at the trainings according to how he addressed to us, so disciplined we were! For example, sometimes Aliuţă made mistakes at trainings. When he called him on the surname, <Mariene, Mariene!>, then we all knew that he is in a good mood and we could afford to make some little mistakes. When he screamed <Aliuţă, Aliuţă!>, we knew that he was angry and that nobody should make a mistake. Nobody dared to say anything in that moment".

"In Ghencea will be order and discipline. Mr. Piţi is not the type of coach that makes compromises. He sees things in a way or another; there is not a middle line. There is no player that makes comments at trainings"
Iulian Miu


Tackling, sacrifice, becoming a permanent player
Marius Baciu, former central defender when Piţi coached Ghencea, tells how the players from Steaua won the post of title: "Only those who demonstrated a trainings that were good could play. At that time you couldn’t play with the interfering of the sponsor or someone else. I can also give you an example. So great was the competition that if a colleague made a tackling, the others were making the same procedure three times, only to prove that we deserve to play at Steaua!". In the last years, many players from Steaua claimed that even if they prepared themselves very well and demonstrated at trainings that deserve the position of tile, Becali’s interference has changed many times the component of the starting team.


THE PREPARATION OF THE MATCHES

Obsessions: the study of the adversary and the individual discussions
His former students reveal also how Piţi prepared the matches, especially the important ones. "One day before the match he called us in his office, one by one, and he discussed a lot with us. About what we have to do, about what qualities have the players with whom we would be face to face, about everything. He told so much information about the adversary, that when we entered on the field we knew them perfectly", remembered Sorin Paraschiv, who played almost 100 official matches under Piţi’s command.


THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PLAYERS

"The salary and the gratification were always received in the established day"
All the 5 players affirm that Piţurcă was very beloved by the players. Trică tries to offer the supreme argument: "He stood out for the players first and then for him. He didn’t accept the salary not be paid on the established day, and the gratification later than the third day after a victory. He knows to win the football players because he defends their interests".


THE MINUS

Trică: "The relationship with the press"
In an ocean of appreciations, one of the 5 former players, Eugen Trică, has also named a minus that Piţurcă has. "When I will become a coach I will be just like him. With his ideas, with his style, everything. Only one thing would be different. The relationship with the press. I would be open, I would be different, he was always cold and distant with the journalists and I don’t think is good to be so", commented Trică.


"He is the only one that can change something at Steaua in this moment. Mr. Piţi knows how to control the locker room, nobody comments in front of him"
Adrian Neaga

"I have worked with a lot of coaches, Romanians and foreigners, but I haven’t seen a coach with such a great personality as Victor Piţurcă"
Eugen Trică


On the all-time podium of the coaches from Steaua
In 63 years of history, Steaua had 32 coaches, and Piţurcă is on the 3rd place from the point of view of the number of matches in the championship, after Ienei and Iordănescu.

Antrenor    Jocuri Liga I
1. Emeric Ienei    311 matches
2. Anghel Iordănescu    160 matches
3. Victor Piţurcă    143 matches
4. Gheorghe Constantin    134 matches
5. Dumitru Dumitriu    105 matches


1,15 is the rate which Piţurcă has at the bookmaker Tobet to become the coach of Steaua. The rate has decreased in only 4 days from 1,45, as he had at the beginning of the week