In an extensive interview given to Gazeta Sporturilor in GalatiSorin Frunză, former midfielder of Unirii Urziceni, champion with Ialomi in 2009, pulled out representative episodes from his career in which he ticked off, among others, 10 appearances in the Champions League groups. Frunză, 47 years old, described Dan Petrescu, the coach he had at “Chelsea de Ialomita” between 2008 and 2009, in luxurious detail.
Known for his demandingness to the extreme, Dan Petrescu kept his players in a regime of “terror” during the years at Urziceni, a “tiny” club that he turned into a championship force.
Sorin Frunză still remembers today the endless training sessions with Petrescu, of the “death of the deer” – the treatment that some players had – in a period when free days had become a luxury for the former champion. A funny story, eloquent for the “Badger's” style, makes Frunză smile even now.
In the very year that followed the championship won by Urziceni, Sorin Frunză resorted to a desperate gesture to convince his coach to give him a one-day “leave”. He sent his 3-year-old child forward to negotiate with the Unirii technician, but the gesture did not move Petrescu in the least.
Sorin Frunză and a memorial episode with Dan Petrescu: “Mystery, I haven't seen my wife for a month!” / “”Get on the bus!””
“Dan Petrescu had his style, which always kept you on your toes. I can tell you one thing to make you realize the extreme to which he went with his professionalism. We had won the championship, and the following season we had a match in Galaţi. I am from Galați.
My child, Matei, was three and a half years old in 2009. We, starting the championship, the Cup, the Champions League, didn't really come home, I didn't have the opportunity to do that. You know the story, we stay after every match in the training camp at our base. The next day I was doing the training. Those who played less did the “death of the deer”, we have a term. The others were doing a rebuild.
I had played as a starter. We had won the match 4-1, if I'm not mistaken. After the match, I go to Petrescu: “Mystery, I haven't been home to see my child and wife for about a month and a half. Let me go and tomorrow I will go to recovery here at Oțelul, I will run with them». And he says: “Get on the bus!”.
I go to my child and say: “Dad, look, I want to come home, but I can't, because the coach won't let me”. I gesture to the child: «Look, that's the coach. Go and tell him you want dad, you start to cry». I see my son leaving, there was a distance of 15-20 meters”, recalled Frunză, in the extensive interview given to Gazeta.
Dan Petrescu took his son by the nose: “Dad, did he hit you with a ball?”
The complaint of the former midfielder was not successful, however, as his boy was quickly “quieted” by Petrescu:
“I don't know if he talks to him for a minute and I see my son come in one leg, laughing. I ask him what happened and he says: “He said he was giving me a ball with the autographs of the players”. And I say to him: “My, did you have a ball, my?”. There was nothing else!
I got on the bus, I was crying! I started to cry, don't you see your family, don't you see your wife and child?! How long had I seen them? Ten minutes?! We got on the bus, went to the base, stayed there, did the next day's training and then left, because we had a day off.
In two and a half years, while I stayed with Dan Petrescu, I don't know if I've ever had two full days off. A day and a half maximum. Today you had a day off, the next day you had to be in training”, said the former footballer.
With all the strictness of Petrescu, Frunză, at the beginning of his job as a coach, also says that the “Badger” is the technician he felt most attached to:
I have a lot of coaches that I take things from, but I don't all take the same thing from them. For me, Petrescu is the one who changed my life, I took the discipline from him.
– Sorin Frunză, champion with Unirea Urziceni in 2009
VIDEO. Full interview with Sorin Frunză: “Without those arrests, Urziceni would not have won the title!”
Dan Petrescu, a landmark in Romanian football
Dan Petrescu is one of the most successful coaches in domestic football: won 6 titles, 5 with CFR and one with Unirea Urziceni, teams with which he also achieved results in European cups. He also has a Cup of China, with Jiangsu, as well as a Cup of Romania, won in 2025, also with CFR Cluj.
- trained teams: Sportul, Rapid, Wisla, Unirea Urziceni, Kuban, Dinamo Moscow, Al Arabi, ASA, Jiangsu, Al Nasr, CFR, Hengfeng, Kayserispor, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors
- 6 major trophies, including 4 titles in League 1 (3 with CFR, 1 with Unirea Urziceni)
- 8 points obtained in UCL groups with Urziceni, season 2009/10, 3rd place in a group with Stuttgart, Sevilla and Rangers; the second best performance of a Romanian team in the League groups, after CFR Cluj – 2012/13 edition (also 3rd place, but 10 points collected)
- European spring with CFR Cluj in the 2019/20 season, eliminated by Sevilla in the round of 16, after 1-1 overall. The Andalusians would win the competition
- 95 of Petrescu's national team, in the period 1989-2000. He scored 12 times
- The “Badger” passed 4 final tournaments in his CV: CM '94, CE '96, CM '98 and CE 2000
- Dan Petrescu won 5 “Coach of the Year” trophies in the GSP Investigationthe last in 2022, tied with Mircea Lucescu
