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Random 1990s Footballer Tuesday: #10 Ilie Dumitrescu

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Daniel Storey
 @ November 15th, 2011

Name: Ilie Dumitrescu

In his 1990s prime for: Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United

Lowdown: Signed for Spurs from Steaua Bucharest in 1994, where he had become a club hero. Internationally, he had recently helped Romania to the quarter-final of the World Cup, including scoring two goals in a 3-2 win against Argentina.

In truth, like many foreign strikers at White Hart Lane, Dumitrescu struggled to settle. A few days after his purchase the Sun newspaper ran a story revealing that the Romanian paid to visit prostitutes, although the story was later revealed to be false.

Dumitrescu went on loan to Sevilla but returned to Spurs and played for the first half of the 1995/6 season, after which Spurs were able to offload him to West Ham. Again, his spell was less than successful (one goal in ten league games) and he went to Mexico, ending his career back at Steaua Bucharest. A career that had promised so much at the 1994 World Cup had failed to deliver, and the attacker retired in 1998 at the age of just 29.

Now: After a playing career in which he struggled to settle Dumitrescu has pretty much followed the same path as a manager, with spells at the helm of eleven different clubs in Greece, Cyprus and Romania. He was last seen managing Steaua Bucharest early last year, but left after six weeks in charge. Not one for the long term commitment.

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