Twin triumph for Romania

Success for Romanian coaches abroad has this week come in a pair. Thirty years after Stefan Kovacs led AFC Ajax to the title in the Netherlands, two men working at the opposite ends of Europe have made their mark.
 
Two title wins
Mircea Lucescu at Galatasaray SK and Laszlo Bölöni with Sporting Clube de Portugal, won their respective championships in Turkey and Portugal on Sunday. For Bölöni it was his first league title, while Lucescu adds Turkish silver to championship medals won at home with FC Dinamo Bucuresti (1990) and FC Rapid Bucuresti (1999).
 
Sweet success
For Lucescu, this was a sweet success, given the rebuilding job required at the Ali Sami Yen stadium last summer. Lucescu lost a host of key players - Gheorghe Hagi, Gheorghe Popescu, Mario Jardel, Fatih Akyel, Emre Belöoglu, Okan Buruk and Claudio Taffarel - from the squad that won him the UEFA Super Cup shortly after his arrival as successor to Fatih Terim in 2000.

’Fantastic team spirit’
"This Galatasaray is my creation," Lucescu said in the wake of Sunday's decisive 2-0 win at Kocaelispor. "The players fought extraordinarily hard. Paradoxically, the most important moment of the season was our elimination from the UEFA Champions League. The pressure was gone and, from then on, we haven't lost a single game nor conceded a goal. We've remained competitive even though we've had injuries, which show a fantastic team spirit." 
 
Many connections
Their successes this season do not provide the sole connecting factor between Lucescu and Bölöni, both former coaches of Romania's national team. Lucescu held the reins from 1982-86, Bölöni - who was capped 108 times as a player - between 2000 and 2001. During Lucescu's time in charge in the 1980s he recalled the then 29-year-old Bölöni to the national team after a long absence - and included the player in his squad for the 1984 UEFA European Championship.  
 
Romanian help
Lucescu and Bölöni have both been helped by the contributions of Romanian players in Radu Niculescu and Marius Niculae respectively. Of Niculescu, whom Lucescu signed on a six-month loan during the winter break, the coach said: "Everybody said that he was finished, but he has trained very hard and helped us a lot. He scored three goals. One of them, against Liverpool [FC] in the Champions League, brought us one million dollars. Another one in Samsun meant a vital victory in the league."
 
Team effort
Most of Sporting's vital goals have come from Jardel, who joined from Galatasaray last summer. But Bölöni, a notorious workaholic, put their success down to a team effort. "The lads played each game as it was their last," he said. "We were unbeaten for 25 matches. But at the beginning, when I arrived in Lisbon, I found a club that was 100 per cent professional, but the team seemed like a big lorry, which was slow to start. But I managed it."
 
Stoichita following suit
While Bölöni looks ahead to "difficult moments" next season - starting with the Champions League third qualifying round - another Romanian is looking to follow his and Lucescu's lead: Mihai Stoichita with title-chasing FC Sheriff Tiraspol in Moldova. After a 30-year wait, Romania's foreign legion has struck gold again.