Mircea Sandu

Romanian footballer

Mircea Traian Sandu (born 22 October 1952 in Bucharest) is a retired Romanian footballer and former president of the Romanian Football Federation.

Mircea Sandu, nicknamed "Nașul" (The Godfather) was born on 22 October 1952 in Bucharest and started playing football at junior level at Școala Sportivă 2 București and Progresul București. He made his Divizia A debut on 30 August 1970 playing for Progresul București in a 1–0 victory against CFR Cluj. After his period spent at Sportul Studențesc, Sandu went to play for Gloria Buzău for one season, making his last Divizia A appearance on 21 September 1987 in a 1–0 victory against Universitatea Cluj in which he scored the goal. After he ended his playing career, Sandu was the president of the Romanian Football Federation between 1990 and 2014.

Mircea Sandu made 16 appearances and scored 4 goals at international level for Romania, making his debut on 8 April 1972 when coach Angelo Niculescu used him in a friendly which ended with a 2–0 victory against France. His following game was Romania's biggest ever victory, a 9–0 against Finland at the 1974 World Cup qualifiers in which he scored two goals. Sandu also played in a 2–2 against Spain at the Euro 1976 qualifiers and played both legs of the successful 1977–80 Balkan Cup final, a 4–3 victory on aggregate against Yugoslavia.

Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Sandu goal. They also had a son named Dan Mircea. In 1997 he married Lisa Alban.