Mario Marinică

Mario Marinică (born 13 December 1964) is a football manager and coach, currently coach at Azam F.C..^[1]

He holds the UEFA Pro Licence, the highest football coaching qualification. He has coached at Romanian clubs FC Rapid București, FC Gloria Buzău, Sportul Studenţesc, Argeş Piteşti, Rocar Bucureşti, and Cimentul Fieni. He has also coached at Black Leopards in South Africa and Kaposvári Rákóczi FC in Hungary. In England, he has worked at Crystal Palace FC and Arsenal FC's Academies as well as Leyton Orient FC's School of Excellence. His playing career included spells at Rocar Bucureşti, Dinamo Bucureşti and Steaua Bucureşti.

Playing career

Mario Marinică featured most notably in the youth and reserve teams at Rocar Bucureşti, Dinamo Bucureşti and Steaua Bucureşti, eventually retiring from playing in 1993.

Coaching career

His coaching career commenced in 1993 at Leyton Orient FC. In a varied coaching role, he directed "Football in the Community" courses, and developed players both at the School of Excellence and first team; working closely with Grant Cornwell, John Sitton and Chris Ramsey.

During the 1998-1999 season he coached Haringey Borough FC. He was both Head of Youth Development and First Team Coach as well as the club's Fitness Trainer. He would later return to the club as first team Manager for a brief spell at the end of the 2005-2006 season. Winning 6 out of the last 7 games, he saved the club from relegation together with his assistant Ged Searson.^[2]

From 1999 to 2001, Marinică was a coach at the Arsenal F.C. Academy, primarily in charge of the under-15 team. During this period, as part of an exchange programme he spent a short time assisting Massimo Pedrazzini within the technical department of Internazionale.

In the 2001-2002 season he returned to Rocar Bucureşti as Assistant Manager. Here he helped to develop a number of players including Cristian Neamtu, Cristian Silvasan, Ionut Rada, and Silviu Balace, that have since been capped by their country.

During 2002-2003, he became a development coach at the Crystal Palace FC Academy. He managed the U15 side, and coached from U14 to U19 levels. He worked with a number of players who have since turned professional and received International honours: Wayne Routledge, Gary Borrowdale, Ben Watson, Tom Soares, Sam Togwell, Lewis Grabban, Rhoys Wiggins, Andrew Julius, David Hunt, Gavin Heeroo, Teerathep Winothai, Will Antwi and Craig Dobson.

At the start of 2003, he was appointed First Team Coach at Argeş Piteşti, working with players such as Nicolae Dică, Andrei Prepeliţă, Raul Marincău, Marius Bilaşco, and Adrian Iordache.

His progress at Argeş Piteşti brought him to the attention of Romanian Serie B club, Cimentul Fieni. He was appointed Caretaker Manager of the Club, towards the end of 2003. In a limited time, and with scarce playing and financial resources, he managed to save Fieni from relegation and help restore pride to the team.

In recent years he has been a member of the Technical Support Staff of the Romanian Football Federation. His coaching and Coach-Educator expertise ^[3][4] have been used to help develop their UEFA-A and UEFA-B licence coaching courses. He has also consulted on player development programmes for the U16 through U21 teams. He co-ordinated the 2006 visit to Romania of Howard Wilkinson.^[5] The former Technical Director of The Football Association was brought over by Marinica to conduct a session of the Romanian Football Federation's UEFA Pro Licence course.

"I have known Mario for a long time. He is an intellectual coach; methodical, a statistician, and an excellent personality." Mircea Rădulescu, Technical Director of the Romanian Football Federation.^[6]

He has been employed by Hertha Berlin, Watford FC, Stockport County FC and Notts County FC for scouting and technical analysis of forthcoming adversaries. He has also been employed to assist Romanian clubs Steaua Bucureşti and Dinamo Bucharest in preparation to face English opposition in European competition. His unsurpassed tactical analysis provided the basis for Steaua Bucureşti's defeat of Middlesbrough FC ^[7] and Dinamo Bucharest's 5-1 defeat of Everton F.C. in the UEFA Cup. It was the first time Everton F.C. had conceded five goals in European competition.^[8]

During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he assisted the Paraguay national football team, providing technical analysis of their group B rivals: England, Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago.

From 2005 to 2007, he completed the UEFA Pro Licence with the Irish Football Association, graduating alongside him were Chris Coleman, Jim Gannon and Bernard McNally; amongst others.^[9][10]

In the 2008-9 season, he was the interim manager of Romanian Liga I (Premier Division) side FC Gloria Buzău. He had been initially employed as Technical Director, and developed young players such as Eric Bicfalvi, Alexandru Tudose, and Alin Litu, all of whom are current members of the Romania national under-21 football team. He took over the Head Coach role in late 2008,^[11] and helped turn around a club that had made the worst ever start to a season in the Romanian League. He secured a notable draw, away to traditional powerhouse Steaua Bucureşti.^[12]

In June 2009, he was appointed Manager of South Africa National First Division side Black Leopards.^[13] Fans heralded Marinica as 'the messiah' upon his appointment, but after just over a month in the hotseat he had to return to Bucharest due to family problems.^[14] Former South Africa national team and current Mamelodi Sundowns coach Ted Dumitru commented at the time; "Mario is a very tactical coach and I’m convinced that he would have turned the team around. He has very strong scientific aspects of hard performance in football."^[15]

In July 2010 was employed as Technical Director at Romanian Premier League side Sportul Studenţesc,^[16] following speculation linking him with the Zambia national football team job.^[17] Marinica then took on a role as assistant manager of Hungarian premier league club Kaposvári Rákóczi FC, he then left the position to take on a similar role with Romanian giants Rapid Bucharest.

In December 2014, he was linked with the vacant manager's job at English Conference National side AFC Telford United.^[18]

Marinica left his advisory technical role at Rapid Bucharest in March 2015 , he released a short statement saying " it was a pleasure to work at one of the greatest names in Romanian football, unfortunately financial constraints at the club have forced me to leave from my role , I wish the club the fans and the owners all the best at helping to return this magnificent football club where they belong".

June 2015 saw Marinica take up the Director of Football role alongside Stewart Hall as Azam F.C. made a major overhaul of their technical staff with an eye on a successful campaign on the Confederation of Africa Federations (CAF) competition. Marinica was able to help alongside Stewart Hall in leading the club to securing their first Kegame Interclub cup title without conceding a single goal, the trophy is contested among the best teams in central and eastern Africa.^[19][20]

In February 2017, he was initially announced as Head Coach of Forest Rangers. Forest chairperson Benhail Mukuka said the club was excited to have signed Marinica, who comes with success from his stint in Tanzania.^[21] However shortly afterwards, Perry Mutapa was announced instead, with the club not elaborating over the reversal of the appointment.^[22]

References