Sorin Ghionea

Football player infobox
playername = Sorin Ghionea
fullname = Sorin Ghionea


dateofbirth = birth date and age|1979|05|11
height = height|m=1.87
cityofbirth = Galaţi
countryofbirth = Romania
currentclub = Steaua Bucureşti
clubcrest =
clubnumber = 24
position = Center Back
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1997–1998
1998–2003
2003-
2004–2005
clubs = Dunărea Galaţi
Oţelul Galaţi
Steaua Bucureşti
→ Oţelul Galaţi (loan)
caps(goals) = 015 00(0)
062 00(2)
097 00(2)
026 00(0)
nationalyears = 2002-
nationalteam = Romania
nationalcaps(goals) = 013 00(1)
pcupdate = 04 October, 2008
ntupdate = September 10, 2008

Sorin Ghionea (nickname: „Zorro”), (born May 11, 1979 in Galaţi) is a Romanian football player, who plays for Steaua Bucureşti as center back, making together with Dorin Goian one of the strongest central defensive couples in East Europe.

Club career

Oţelul Galaţi

At the age of 12, Ghionea was sent to Oţelul Galaţi football club by his teacher, Tică Ploieşteanu. The second day he was hand-picked by the coach and played there for 2 years. After that he studied hard at school and left football until the 10th grade when he went back to the youth team of Oţelul Galaţi. At first he played as a full left back, but then he moved into the center of defense.

Dunărea Galaţi

Ghionea made his debut as a player for Dunărea Galaţi during the 1997-98 season and helped his team avoid relegation in Liga III. Just one year later, he joined Oţelul Galaţi. He debuted in Divizia A on 7 August 1998 in the win against FC Naţional.

He played for Oţelul between 1998-2003 62 matches and scoring 2 goals. He also was loaned by Steaua to Oţelul Galaţi in the 2004-05 season in Liga I.

teaua Bucureşti

In 2002 Ghionea moved to Steaua for free transfer, but he didn't convince Victor Piturca, Steaua's manager at that time, playing only in 6 matches and then being loaned back to Oţelul Galaţi. He played as a captain for Oţelul on his loaned season in most of the matches and he had excellent performances. In 2004, the ex-president of Oţelul Galaţi, now manager of Steaua Bucureşti, Mihai Stoica, took him back to the team from Bucharest.When he returned to Steaua, Victor Piţurcă left to coach the Romanian national football team and Walter Zenga became Steaua's new manager.

In September 2004 Ghionea went through an operation on his nose after the match against FK Voždovac. To protect his nose, he played wearing a mask and he was nickanamed "Zorro". He became close to Dorin Goian a basic player for Steaua Bucureşti especially after he took Mirel Rădoi's place in the central defense after he was injured for a couple of time. When Rădoi returned to the first team he was put to play in the midfield and Ghionea kept his place.

With Steaua Bucuresti he played 53 games in 2 seasons and succeeded to win two consecutive champion titles in 2005 and 2006.

In the European Cups he debuted with Steaua in UEFA Cup in the season 2004-2005 which was very good for them because they succeeded to qualify in the European Spring after more than 10 years.Steaua passed from a group with Standard Liege, Sampdoria, Besiktas Istanbul and Athletic Bilbao and also eliminated after this the ex-winner of UEFA Cup, Valencia.

The next season in UEFA Cup was even better because Steaua played in the semi-finals after defeated teams like Lens, Heerenveen, Real Betis and in the quarter-finals Rapid Bucureşti, one of their traditional Romanian rivals. In the semi-final was eliminated by Middlesbrough after two fantastic games.

He scored his first goal for Steaua against Dinamo Kiev, in the UEFA Champions League group stage. After a corner kick served by Vasilică Cristocea, Ghionea placed a header on the right post and in the back of the net.

On 25 February 2007 Ghionea suffered an injury in Steaua - UTA Arad, match ended with a draw. His situation got worse and was forced to have surgery on his left knee in April 2007. After 4 months from the injury, Ghionea started his training on the pitch, closely supervised by medic Radu Paligora. Even though it was said that Ghionea will not miss the start of Liga I 2007-08 season on 28 July, his knee wasn't fully recovered and he didn't played in any match for Steaua. In October 2007 there were rumors that Ghionea will no longer play football, but coach Massimo Pedrazzini said that the information isn’t true and Ghionea is still recovering. On 13 October 2007 the center back withstanded another surgery to check the natural causes of his injury and to estimate the period that he will be unavailable.

On 18 January, 2008 he played his first game since his injury, after 11 months, a friendly match against Wisła Kraków that ended 0-0. Since then he has played in almost all of the matches of the remaining season.

Transfer offers

On July 10 2008, Steaua Bucharest rejected a €1.5m bid from Catania's for Ghionea and he decided to remain at the club for the forseeable future.

International career

Ghionea made his international debut for Romania on 27 March 2002 in a friendly against Ukraine, and his international career got off to a winning start with a 4-1 victory for Romania. Since then Ghionea has won nine further caps for Romania. He was sent off in Romania's second 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification match against the Faroe Islands in a match that Romania won 1-0.

Titles

External links

* [http://www.romaniansoccer.ro/players/g/ghionea.shtml Sorin Ghionea's career @ Romaniansoccer.ro (English)]
* [http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UCL/Players/Player=45235/index.html Sorin Ghionea's profile @ UEFA.com (English)]
*footballdatabase|id=7255|fullname=Sorin_Ghionea|popularname=Sorin Ghionea