Viorel Ion

Viorel Ion

Personal information
Date of birth	(1967-11-02) 2 November 1967
Place of birth	Mărăcineni, Buzău, Romania
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Striker
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1986–1991	Gloria Buzău12	4	(4)
1991–1992	Oțelul Galați	33	(11)
1992–1995	Steaua București	73	(9)
1995–1998	Oțelul Galați	100	(28)
1998–1999	VfL Bochum	12	(1)
1999–2000	Oțelul Galați	36	(5)
2000–2001	Rapid București	14	(0)
2001–2003	Gloria Buzău3	18	(3)
2003–2004	Rulmentul Alexandria	8	(0)
2004–2005	Dunărea Galați	20	(4)
2005–2008	Gloria Buzău	56	(8)
Total		374	(73)
International career
1991–1997	Romania	4	(0)
Managerial career
2005–2008	Gloria Buzău
2011–2012	CF Brăila
2012–2013	CS Otopeni
2013–2016	Gloria Buzău
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Viorel Ion (born 2 November 1967) is a Romanian football manager. Throughout his playing career, Viorel Ion played for several teams, including Oțelul Galați, Steaua București, VfL Bochum and Rapid București. He was player-manager of Gloria Buzău, which he helped promote to Liga I during the 2006–07 season.

Career

Ion was born in Buzău. His Romanian first league debut took place in 1984, at the age of 17, playing for Gloria Buzău. In 1991, he left his club, at the time relegated to Liga II, for Oțelul Galați. Nicknamed Vioară (Violin), he subsequently transferred to Steaua București, winning three Romanian Champion titles with that team. From Steaua, he went on to play in the German Bundesliga for VfL Bochum. Upon his return to Romania, he played for Rapid București and Oțelul Galați again.

Ion made four appearances for the Romania national football team.

Player-manager of Gloria Buzău

In 2001, he returned to Buzău, to find his old team, Gloria, relegated to the Romanian third division. He took over as player-manager and promoted the team back to Liga II in his first year. Later on, he attempted to lead Gloria to Liga I in 2005, when the team lost the promotion play-off to Politehnica Timișoara. Viorel Ion succeeded to promote Gloria Buzău to Liga I during the 2006–07 season, after finishing second. After losing the first two games of the 2007–08 season, Ion resigned his position as player-manager in favor of his colleague Ilie Stan, and took on other management position with Gloria Buzău.

Honours

Club

Steaua Bucharest

• Romanian League (3): 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95

Notes

^1 The 1987–1988, 1989–1991 appearances and goals made for Gloria Buzău are unavailable.
^2 The 1988–1989 appearances made for Gloria Buzău are unavailable.
^3 The 2001–2002 appearances and goals made for Gloria Buzău are unavailable.

External links

• Viorel Ion at National-Football-Teams.com
• Viorel Ion at RomanianSoccer.ro (archived) (in Romanian)