Cornel Dinu

Club career

International career

Managerial career

After retirement

Publishing

• Fotbal – Tactica astăzi ' - co-written with Ion V. Ionescu
• Fotbal – Concepția de joc ' - co-written with Ion V. Ionescu
• Zâmbind din iarbă ' - autobiographical novel
• Jucând cu destinul ' - autobiographical novel
• Misterele lui Mister - autobiographical novel

Quotes

• "A funny story. The first match was played in Belfast. I was not in the team. On the way back, a few colleagues said it was a very tough game, 1–0, the Northern Irish are very strong. They were given a bonus, good thing the matches weren't broadcast! When we played in the second leg, I yelled at them to shame them after about 20 minutes. Those guys had no idea about football. They were amateurs, these bearded guys, you had the feeling that they were something between guitarists and waiters. Pure amateurs!" – declaration years later after an 11–0 win over Crusaders in the 1973–74 European Cup in which he scored a goal.
• "Șumudică is a «vero» Romanian. He combines the fantastic humor and the Romanian spirit very well. He has this spirit of treating phases with humor. His lines are very good. I don't know where he gets this humor from, he has it not only because he was born in the center of Bucharest, in Piața Romană, as he says. He has good quality sidewalk humor. He is not called Ninel for nothing. He is also called Marius, a Latin name. That was the name of Caesar's uncle, the general who fought the German savages head-to-head."
• "Worker Nicoliță, very hardworking, but the football field is not a construction site."
• "Philosophy is a transcendental propaedeutic for the death-haunted soul of the Romanian."
• "Pițurcă is like a Griffon dog that you have to knock off the forehead with a compass and a rake to see if it has a brain."
• "I started writing the fourth book. I generally write at night and sleep during the day. On the other hand, where should I go out? I apply the famous quote of Țuțea, "you have nothing to look for outside, there are too many imbeciles"."
• "Gnohéré looked like a simple Foreign Legion unit cook somewhere in Africa in an imaginary war."
• "This Rambé... I think his name is Ramble. The railway ramble where the train slows down so it doesn't derail."
• "I have a reserved opinion, in my opinion Peteleu is something between a cave and a cavern as a left defender. The poor guy has big problems!"
• "Matulevičius is good rather as a high voltage pole in the opposing box, maybe only to electrocute the opposing defenders."
• "Sânmărtean, considering how he plays in many phases when he won't finish the dribbles he starts at 30, 35 meters from the opposing goal. I have the feeling that he is a born tired player!"
• "Oroș, according to me, is a hole in Astra's indisputable defense! The way Oroș looks means that he eats well at Giurgiu, because he looks more like a rugby pillar. Don't you see how he looks?"
• "It was a mistake with the display of frankincense. Not in the locker room, not in the cells where the football parishioners stay. It had to start from the Palace, everything starts from there. Well, who brought players like Popescu or Oaidă? They are players without imagination, without technical ability. These players, after they pass the half court, you have to tell them to stop. But who will do this? The monks and prayer witnesses who sit next to Becali are not good at football."
• "A detective needs to find out what Dinamo is playing and how the players were placed on the field by Bonetti. When you make football players train by climbing the stairs, something that hasn't been done since Teașcă's time, what expectations do you have?! That's the basic training lately, ten stairs up, ten down! It's like those black guys who carried sacks of dirt on their backs in search of Tutankhamun's tomb."

Career statistics

International

Honours

Player

• Divizia A: 1970–71, 1972–73, 1974–75, 1976–77, 1981–82, 1982–83
• Cupa României: 1967–68, 1981–82

• Romanian Footballer of the Year: 1970, 1972, 1974
• Ballon d'Or: 1970

Manager

• Divizia A: 1999–2000, 2001–02
• Cupa României: 1999–2000, 2000–01