Dumitrache was born on 22 May 1948 in
Bucharest, Romania, having been nicknamed since his childhood "Mopsul" (The Pug), because his nose resembled that of a
pug. He started playing junior-level football in 1961 at
Rapid București. He made his
Divizia A debut on 2 May 1966, playing for Dinamo București under coach
Angelo Niculescu in a 1–1 draw against
Dinamo Pitești. His first trophy won was the
1967–68 Cupa României, scoring a goal in the 3–1 victory in the
final against Rapid in which coach
Bazil Marian used him the entire match. In the following three editions of the
Cupa României, the team would reach the final in all of them, Dumitrache scoring a goal in each of the first two, but they were all lost to
rivals Steaua București. Over the years he would score five more goals in the derby against Steaua in five league victories. Dumitrache won three league titles with
The Red Dogs in 1971, 1973 and 1975. In the first one he contributed with 15 goals scored in the 28 matches he was used by coaches
Nicolae Dumitru and Ionescu. During his time at Dinamo, Dumitrache also played 16 games and scored six goals in European competitions. He became the Divizia A top-scorer twice, first in 1969 with 22 goals and the second in 1971, alongside
Constantin Moldoveanu and
Gheorghe Tătaru with 15 goals. Dumitrache won two times (1968, 1969) the
Romanian Footballer of the Year award, and in 1970, he was nominated for the
Ballon d'Or along with Dinamo teammate
Cornel Dinu. Italian club
Juventus wanted to sign the 24-year-old Dumitrache after his performance in the
1970 World Cup, making an estimated
$1.5 million offer for him, but
Nicolae Ceaușescu's
communist regime refused. He netted 20 goals in his first season, being the league's second top-scorer, only behind former teammate, Dinamo's
Dudu Georgescu who won the
European Golden Shoe. In 1979 he went to
Divizia B club,
Corvinul Hunedoara where his former Dinamo teammate,
Mircea Lucescu was coaching, scoring 15 goals in his
first season which helped the club earn promotion to the first league. During the second leg against Sarajevo, an incident occurred where he headbutted referee Gianfranco Menegali in the mouth and as a consequence,
UEFA handed him the maximum seven year suspension from all its competitions. Dumitrache made his last Divizia A appearance on 17 September 1983 in Corvinul's 2–0 home loss to his former team, Jiul Petroșani, totaling 357 matches with 170 goals in the competition. ==International career==