Date of birth: 29 July 1945
Nationality: Romanian
Playing career: FC Dinamo Bucureşti, FC Sportul Studenţesc Bucureşti, FC Corvinul Hunedoara
Coaching career: FC Corvinul Hunedoara, Romania, FC Dinamo Bucureşti, AC Pisa 1909, Brescia Calcio, AC Reggiana 1919, FC Rapid Bucureşti (twice), FC Internazionale Milano, Galatasaray AŞ, Beşiktaş JK, FC Shakhtar Donetsk

• A useful striker for Dinamo in the 1960s and 1970s, winning six league titles and 70 caps for Romania as well as playing at the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Lucescu became Corvinul player-coach in his early 30s and went on to win three Romanian championships with Dinamo.

• Fluent in six foreign languages and regarded as a workaholic, he cemented his reputation at Pisa, Brescia and Reggiana before returning home for the first of two spells as Rapid coach, winning the league in 1998 and 2000.

• Returned to Serie A for a short spell at Inter in 1998/99 before a one-season return to Rapid, going on to lift the UEFA Super Cup in his first game as Galatasaray coach in 2000. Lucescu won the Turkish title in 2001/02 and repeated the feat with Beşiktaş in 2002/03, their centenary season.

• Left Beşiktaş in 2004 and promptly joined Shakhtar, leading the club to titles in 2005, 2006 and 2008, when his side also won the Ukrainian Cup.

• In May 2009, Lucescu's Shakhtar became the first Ukrainian club to win the UEFA Cup in the competition's final edition. He suffered a heart attack that summer but swiftly returned to work, guiding the club to another league title at the end of the season and winning the domestic double in 2010/11, when Shakhtar also reached the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, and 2011/12.