Florin Prunea

Florin Prunea
	Prunea in 1994
Personal information
Date of birth	8 August 1968 (age 56)
Place of birth	București, Romania
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Team information
Current team	Dinamo București (general manager)
Youth career
1977–1985	Dinamo București
Senior career*
Years	Team
1985–1988	Dinamo București
1988–1990	Universitatea Cluj
1990–1991	Universitatea Craiova
1991–1992	Universitatea Cluj
1992–1998	Dinamo București
1998	Universitatea Cluj
1998–1999	Erzurumspor
1999	Astra Ploiești
1999–2000	FC U Craiova
2000	Litex Lovech
2000–2002	Dinamo București
2002–2003	FCM Bacău
2003–2004	Brașov
2004	FCM Bacău
2004–2005	Skoda Xanthi
2005–2006	Național București
Total
International career
1990–2001	Romania
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Florin Prunea (born 8 August 1968) is a Romanian former football goalkeeper. He was born in Bucharest and started his career for Dinamo București. His breakthrough came with U Cluj in the 1988/89 season. In 1991, he won with Universitatea Craiova both the title and the Romanian Cup. Later he was the first-choice goalkeeper for Dinamo București for six seasons.

Prunea got 40 caps for the national team, and represented his country at the 1994 World Cup, Euro 1996, 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000. In the 1994 World Cup, he replaced Bogdan Stelea as the goalkeeper in Romania's starting eleven after a devastating 1–4 loss against Switzerland, which shattered Stelea's confidence. Although Prunea kept a clean sheet in Romania's final group game against the USA, he performed rather badly in the Round of 16 game against Argentina, conceding an easy goal against Balbo in the 75th minute; however, due to splendid performances by Dumitrescu and Hagi, the result of the game was 3–2 for Romania.

Another mistake in the quarter-final game against Sweden would not go by unpunished, however. After a goal by Brolin in the 78th minute and double goals by Răducioiu in the 88th and 101st minute, the outcome seemed to be Romanian victory yet again; but with five minutes to the final whistle, Prunea gave giant striker Kennet Andersson the chance to level the score to 2–2. The game went on to penalties where Sweden won 5–4 after two spectacular saves by Thomas Ravelli.

Honours

Dinamo București

Universitatea Craiova

Litex Lovech

Bulgarian Cup: 2000–01

External links

Florin Prunea at National-Football-Teams.com
Florin Prunea at RomanianSoccer.ro (in Romanian)