“He was like a father. A part of me was lost”

The Italian who played 101 matches under the command of Mircea Lucescu spoke in superlatives and said that he was so marked by Mircea Lucescu's way of working that he graduated from Coverciano (coaching school in Italy) with a paper about the great Romanian coach.

Marco Schenardi: “I graduated from Coverciano with a paper about Mircea Lucescu”

“He was like a father to me. I had made my Serie A debut with Bologna, but actually my first real season in the top flight was at Brescia with him. He was an innovator in terms of game organization and mentality. He left a deep impression on me and I took many of his teachings when I started my coaching career.

I graduated from the courses at Coverciano with a paper about Lucescu itself. I was inspired by the training microcycle that I followed in Brescia under his guidance and I applied it when I became a coach.

He and Adriano Bacconi were pioneers of modern football. I remember that Bacconi would cut and edit the recordings of the matches, and Lucescu would show them to us. It was a step ahead, because at that time there were innovative things. He and Adriano were a perfect pair,” said Marco Schenardi, according to Tutto Mercato Web.

• Marco Schenardi coached at Narnese, Sansepolcro, Deruta, Rieti, Sporting Terni, Spoleto, Civitanovese, Flaminia, Ternana (juniors and women's team)

This is my only regret, in Italy he was not lucky. He would have deserved in Italy the success he had abroad. It was a matter of opportunity. He had a chance at Inter, but he found it in a difficult context, where the team had not won for many years, and the coaches were simply “grinded”.

Mircea had a very open, available, but also special character. In a big Serie A team, such a character was more difficult to fit. One was at Brescia, in Serie B, where the players blindly followed you. But in the big teams you have to be lucky to get into the minds of the champions. I was very sorry that at Inter things did not go as they should have

–Marco Schenardi

A single word is not enough to describe it. I would say histrionic and brilliant. He was a person with a thousand faces. You had to know him very well to fully appreciate him. A loyal person, I remember him with special affection. We didn't see each other for a few years, then I found him again at an Inter match: he saw me and hugged me. We had a very special relationship. For me, he was a special person, and with his departure, a part of my life disappears.

–Marco Schenardi

Mircea Lucescu, unparalleled career in football

• Mircea Lucescu took his first steps in football at Dinamo Bucharest, the team with which he has spent most of his career. He also performed at Știința Bucharest and Corvinul Hunedoara.

• As a player, he won 6 championship titles and a Romanian Cup, all with Dinamo.

• Throughout his coaching career, he trained Corvinul, the Romanian national team, Dinamo, Pisa, Brescia, Reggiana, Rapid, Inter, Galatasaray, Beşiktaş, Shakhtior, Zenit, the Turkish national team and Dinamo Kiev.

• He won 36 trophies in his career as a technician: 9 times the championship of Ukraine, 8 times the Ukrainian Cup, 7 times the Ukrainian Supercup, 3 times the Romanian Cup, 2 times the Romanian championship, 2 times the Turkish championship, as well as the UEFA Cup, the European Super Cup, the Russian Super Cup and the Anglo-Italian Cup.