Dumitru Macri

Dumitru Macri (28 April 1931 – 20 March 2024) was a Romanian football player and coach.^[4]

Dumitru Macri was born on 28 April 1931 in Bucharest, Romania and started to play football in 1947 at junior level at Flacăra Roșie București, afterwards he went to play at senior level at Rapid București, masking his Divizia A debut on 19 March 1950 in a 0–0 against Știința Timișoara, ending the season on the second place, losing the title in favor of Flamura Roșie Arad with whom they had the same number of points but inferior goal average.^{[1][2][5][6][7]} He spent all of his career at Rapid București which consisted of 15 seasons in which he was the club's captain between 1952 and 1966, the highlights of this period being another two runner-up positions in the first league, the reaching of two Cupa României finals in 1961 and 1962 under the guidance of coach Ion Mihăilescu which were lost in front of Arieșul Turda respectively Steaua București, also the winning of the 1957 Cupa Primăverii and the 1963–64 Balkans Cup.^{[1][2][5][6][7][8][9][10]} In 1961, Macri became the first Romanian footballer to be nominated for the Ballon d'Or.^{[5][6][11][12]} During his stay at Rapid București, the club relegated twice to Divizia B, but Macri stayed with the club each time, helping it promote back to the first division.^[1][6][7] Macri made his last Divizia A appearance on 27 June 1965 in a 2–1 victory against Crișul Oradea, having a total of 221 matches with one goal scored in the competition against Flamura Roșie Arad in 1954 with a shot from about 60 meters in a eventual 3–2 loss.^{[1][5][6][7][13]} During his career, Macri had offers from Bucharest rivals, Dinamo and Steaua, also from Greek club, Panathinaikos but he refused to leave Rapid every time.^[7]

Macri played eight games for Romania, making his debut under coach Augustin Botescu on 26 October 1958 in a friendly which ended with a 2–1 loss against Hungary.^[2][14][15] His second game was a 3–0 victory against Turkey at the 1960 European Nations' Cup qualifiers, but his best game played for the national team is considered to be a 1–0 victory in a friendly against Turkey after which a Turkish journalist who saw the game and also was one of the 19 journalists who sent nominations to France Football for the 1961 Ballon d'Or, chose Macri on his list of nominees sent to the magazine.^[6][14] His last game played for the national team took place on 1 November 1962 in a 6–0 loss against Spain at the 1964 European Nations' Cup qualifiers.^[14] He also appeared twice for Romania's Olympic team at the 1960 Summer Olympics qualifiers.^[3][13][14]

Macri was manager at CFR Timișoara, Rapid București and Olt Scornicești in Divizia A, also managing in Algeria, firstly from 1971 until 1973 at RC Kouba, then the Algerian national team from 1974 until 1975.^{[5][6][7][13][16][17][18]} In 1981 he was Constantin Cernăianu's assistant at Romania's under-20 national team that obtained a third place at the FIFA World Youth Championship.^[19][20]

Macri's family comes from Ampelochori, a small village near Kalabaka, Greece.^[21] He left Romania in 1986, moving to France with his son, an architect, being forced to do so by Romania's communist regime who was bothered that he had relatives living outside the country.^[8][19]

Macri died on 20 March 2024, at the age of 92.^[16][22][23]

Rapid București

• Divizia A runner-up: 1950, 1963–64, 1964–65^[1]
• Divizia B: 1952, 1955^[1]
• Cupa României runner-up: 1960–61, 1961–62^[9][10]
• Balkans Cup: 1963–64^[6]
• Cupa Primăverii: 1957^[2]

Individual

• Ballon d'Or: 1961 (35th place)^[11][12]