Nicolae Dobrin

{{Quote box| width=20% Dobrin, nicknamed Gâscanul ("The Gander") or Prințul din Trivale ("The Prince of Trivale"), was born on 26 August 1947 in Pitești, Argeș County, Romania and is considered one of Romania's greatest footballers. He began playing football as a child with his friends on a field they nicknamed "Maracana", located close to the Argeș river. One day in 1959 some players from Dinamo Pitești came to play with them, and Dobrin's team won 12–2, with him scoring six goals. Dobrin played for his local club Argeș Pitești for most of his professional career. In the last round of the 1968–69 season, he scored a double and provided an assist for Petre Nuțu's goal in a 3–0 win over ASA Târgu Mureș which earned the points that saved them from relegation. In the last game of the following season, The Violet Eagles were playing against Universitatea Craiova, with Dobrin and Universitatea star Ion Oblemenco competing for the top-scorer of the season award, Oblemenco leading with one goal more than Dobrin. Dobrin opened the score in the 37th minute, but Oblemenco equalized one minute later and the game ended in a 1–1 draw, thus Dobrin finishing as the second league top-scorer with 18 goals. Afterwards, under the guidance of coach Florin Halagian he won two Divizia A titles. For the 1971–72 title, he formed a successful trio in the offence with Constantin Radu and Radu Jercan, being the team's top-scorer with 15 goals netted in 23 matches. Dobrin was decisive in the final game of the season against Dinamo București in which he netted the final goal of the 4–3 victory, his performance being appreciated by journalist Ioan Chirilă who gave him a grade 10 in the Sportul newspaper. Dobrin played 25 games and scored eight goals in European competitions (including 12 games and two goals in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup). In the winter of 1966, because the French people were impressed that they defeated Toulouse, Dinamo Pitești was invited to participate at the friendly tournament organized in Marseille called Tele-magazine International Cup. In the following round they won a home game with 2–1 against Real Madrid in which Dobrin opened the score but lost the second leg with 3–1. Because of the communist regime in Romania in that period, Bernabéu had to hold talks with dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu himself, but could not persuade him, because Dobrin was regarded as a "national treasure" and such values could not be "estranged", especially not playing in a team from the country of Francisco Franco's fascist dictatorship. On this occasion Santiago Bernabéu made a last unsuccessful attempt to keep the Romanian player in Madrid. In the 1978–79 UEFA Cup, Argeș defeated Valencia in the home game with 2–1, Dobrin opening the score from an indirect free kick. According to his former teammate Andrei Speriatu, after the game, Mario Kempes, who had just won the World Cup with Argentina as the top-scorer and best player of the tournament, went to Dobrin and told him:"You are a great player!". In 1980, he joined CS Târgoviște in Divizia B, scoring 17 goals in his first season which helped them gain promotion to Divizia A, where in the following season he played 13 games and scored five goals. In 1982 he returned to Argeș Pitești as a player-coach, making his last appearance as a player on 14 June 1983 in a 2–0 victory against Bihor Oradea. Throughout his career, Dobrin played 409 Divizia A matches with 111 goals scored and was the Romanian Footballer of the Year in 1966, 1967 and 1971. In 2003, the Local Council of Pitești decided to rename Argeș Pitești's stadium into Stadionul Nicolae Dobrin in his honor. In 2008, a statue of him was displayed within the stadium. ==International career==