Ilie Datcu

Datcu was born on 20 July 1937 in Bucharest, Romania.^[3][4] He began playing football at the junior squads of Constructorul București in 1950, four years later going to Metalul Câmpina and then joining Progresul CPCS București.^[4][5] He started his senior career in 1958 at Divizia B team Dinamo Obor București.^[4][5] During this three-season spell, the club reached the 1960 Cupa României final, where coach Constantin Teașcă used him the entire match in the 2–0 loss to Progresul București.^[4][5][6]

Datcu went to play for Dinamo București where he made his Divizia A debut on 20 August 1961 in a 4–3 away loss against Dinamo Pitești.^[5] He made a total of 20 league appearances in his first season, helping the team win the title, working with coaches Traian Ionescu, Constantin Teașcă and Nicolae Dumitru.^[5][7] In the following three seasons, Datcu won another three titles.^[5][7] In the first two he was coached by Dumitru and Ionescu who used him 13 games in the first one and 26 in the second.^[5][7] For the last title, Datcu played in 24 matches under the guidance of Angelo Niculescu.^[5][7] During his period spent with The Red Dogs, he also won two Cupa României.^[5][8] In the 1964 final, Ionescu played him for the first 85 minutes, then replaced him with Iuliu Uțu in the 5–3 victory against rivals Steaua București, but in 1968, coach Bazil Marian did not use him in the 3–1 win over Rapid București.^[9]

He also made some performances in European competitions with Dinamo as in the 1963–64 European Cup campaign he kept two clean sheets in the 3–0 aggregate win over East Germany champion, Motor Jena, being eliminated in the next round by Real Madrid.^[5][10] He subsequently appeared in a historical 2–1 win over Inter Milan in the 1965–66 edition who were the winners of the last two editions of the competition.^[5][11]

In 1969, aged 31, Datcu went to play in Turkey for Fenerbahçe where in his first season he was coached by Traian Ionescu and was teammates with Ion Nunweiller, all of them previously working together at Dinamo.^{[4][5][12][13][14]} They won the 1969–70 Turkish League in which Datcu made 29 appearances, conceding only six goals, and also kept a clean sheet in the 1–0 victory in the TSYD Cup final against Beşiktaş.^{[4][5][12][13][14]} In the following years he won another title in the 1973–74 season, making 21 appearances, also winning another TSYD Cup, a Chancellor Cup in 1973 and a Turkish Cup in 1974.^[4][8][12] Datcu ended his career by spending the 1975–76 season at Giresunspor.^[4][5][8] He has a total of 166 matches played in Divizia A, 130 games in the Turkish League and 22 appearances in European competitions.^[4][5][8]

Datcu played six games for Romania, making his debut on 12 May 1963 under coach Silviu Ploeșteanu in a 3–2 friendly victory against East Germany.^[1][4][15] He played two matches in the Euro 1968 qualifiers.^[1] He also played for Romania's Olympic team, being chosen by Ploeșteanu to be part of the 1964 Summer Olympics squad in Tokyo where he made four appearances, helping the team finish in fifth place.^[3][4][16]

He started his managerial career at Fenerbahçe in 1976.^[2][17] Datcu mostly coached in Turkey, working at numerous clubs.^[13][18][19] In the 1982–83 Turkish Second League season, he helped Fatih Karagümrük gain promotion to the first league after an absence of 20 years.^[20] He also worked as a goalkeeper coach, first at Fenerbahçe, where he noticed and promoted Rüştü Reçber, then at Beşiktaş, being brought there by his former teammate from Dinamo and the national team, Mircea Lucescu.^[13][18][19]

Datcu resides in Bodrum, Turkey.^[17] He also holds Turkish citizenship under the name İlyas Datça.^[4]