Marcel Pigulea

Marcel Pigulea (born 24 May 1943) is a Romanian former football player and manager.^[2]

Marcel Pigulea was born on 24 May 1943 in Albulești, starting to play junior level football in 1955 at Progresul Strehaia, after a while starting to play for the senior squad.^[1][3][4][5] In 1961 he went for two years at Dunărea Giurgiu, followed by one season at Flacăra Roșie București and another at Metalul București, all of them being in the lower leagues of Romania.^[1][3][4][5] In 1965 he signed with Divizia A club, Dinamo București for which he did not play, one year later returning to Divizia B football at Politehnica București where he was teammate with Mircea Lucescu.^{[1][3][4][5][6]}

In 1968, Pigulea went to play for Argeș Pitești where on 8 September coach Ion Bălănescu gave him his Divizia A debut in a 2–1 away loss in front of Petrolul Ploiești.^[1][3][4][5] In the 1971–72 season he helped Argeș win the first title in its history, coaches Titus Ozon and Florin Halagian giving him 27 appearances.^[1][3][4][7] Afterwards he played four games in the 1972–73 European Cup, eliminating Aris Bonnevoie in the first round, then in the following one they won a home game with 2–1 against Real Madrid but lost the second leg with 3–1.^[1][8] Years later in an interview for the Adevărul newspaper he talked about the victory with the Spaniards:"It was an incredible victory for us and for Romanian football. Even now I still have the newspapers somewhere in the attic with the articles written in October 1972 about our victory against Real Madrid. We hoped, we believed, but we did not imagine that we would beat Real. The whole team played very well, and Dobrin was in top form."^[9] In his last season at Argeș, he played in both legs of the 6–2 loss on aggregate with Fenerbahçe from the first round of the 1973–74 UEFA Cup.^[1][10]

Pigulea ended his playing career after spending two seasons at Divizia A club FCM Reșița, having a total of 182 matches with two goals scored in the competition.^[1][3][4][5]

Marcel Pigulea started coaching in 1976 at Chimia Râmnicu Vâlcea which he helped promote to the first league two years later.^{[3][4][5][11]} In 1981 he left Râmnicu Vâlcea to coach Politehnica Timișoara for one year.^{[3][4][5][11]} Afterwards he coached Romania's under-18 national team, helping it qualify to the 1983 European Under-18 Championship, teaching and forming players like Gheorghe Hagi, Marius Lăcătuș, Gheorghe Mihali, Dumitru Stângaciu, Dorin Mateuț, Zsolt Muzsnay or Emil Săndoi.^{[3][4][5][11][12]} Since 1985 he coached several clubs like Dunărea Galați, a second spell at Chimia Râmnicu Vâlcea, Gloria Buzău and UTA Arad.^{[3][4][5][11][13]} Then in the early 1990s he started coaching Romania's under-18 side once again, this time promoting players like Ionuț Luțu, Mugur Bolohan, Cristian Ciocoiu or Constantin Schumacher.^[3][4][5] In 1996 he started working abroad, firstly at Moroccan side Hassania Agadir, then from 1998 until 1999 at Algeria's national team.^{[3][4][5][11][14]} In 1999 he founded the private school "Clubul Pro Luceafărul" where players like Răzvan Marin, Ianis Hagi or Nicolas Popescu took their first steps in football.^{[3][4][11][15]}

Argeș Pitești

• Divizia A: 1971–72^[1]

Chimia Râmnicu Vâlcea

• Divizia B: 1977–78^[3][4]

• Profile in Divizia A at labtof.ro