Ionuț Rada (footballer, born 1982)

Ionuț Rada
Personal information
Full name Ionuț Alin Rada
Date of birth (1982-07-06) 6 July 1982
Place of birth Craiova, Romania
Height 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)
Playing position Centre back / Left back
Club information
Current team
 Sănătatea Cluj
Number 6
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2000–2004 FC U Craiova 46 (1)
2001 → Rocar București (loan) 13 (0)
2004–2007 Rapid București 65 (3)
2005–2006 → Naţional București (loan) 14 (2)
2007–2010 Steaua București 32 (1)
2009–2010 → Otopeni (loan) 13 (0)
2010 Al-Nasr
2010–2015 CFR Cluj 78 (4)
2012 → Karlsruher (loan) 15 (1)
2015–2016 Bari 26 (2)
2016–2018 Fidelis Andria 54 (2)
2018– Sănătatea Cluj 1 (0)
National team‡
2003 Romania U-21 1 (0)
2003–2004 Romania 2 (0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 9 September 2018
‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 31 July 2011

Ionuț Alin Rada (born 6 July 1982) is a Romanian footballer who plays as a central defender for Liga III side Sănătatea Cluj.[1]

Club career

Universitatea Craiova

Rada started his career playing for Universitatea Craiova's youth team and also played for Gheorghe Popescu's famous football school from Craiova.

He debuted in Liga I for Universitatea Craiova playing only four matches being loaned to AS Rocar Bucureşti.

He returned to Universitatea Craiova and played there until 2004, scoring 1 goal in 42 appearances.

AS Rocar Bucureşti

He played for AS Rocar Bucureşti 13 matches but did not manage to score any goals. He was then brought back to Universitatea Craiova

Rapid Bucureşti

In 2004, he joined Rapid Bucureşti along with his teammate from Universitatea Craiova, Ionut Stancu. From Rapid he was loaned one season to Progresul Bucureşti, where he gained 14 appearances and scored two goals, one of the two goals was against his current team Steaua Bucureşti. That goal made Walter Zenga, Steaua Bucureşti's manager at that time, resign.

On 27 July 2006, Rada suffered an injury and missed the start of the season. He spent a month under treatment at the Isokinetic clinic in Bologna. He was left out of the team for the first time on 26 November 2006 by Razvan Lucescu because of his performance against Mladá Boleslav in the UEFA Cup.

George Copos, Rapid's owner, increased Rada's salary from €60.000 to €120.000 on 21 February 2007, due to his good performance. He was one of the lowest paid players from Rapid until his salary was doubled.

He played for Rapid in 65 matches and scored three goals. His best performance at this club was the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup.

Steaua Bucureşti

Rada signed with Steaua Bucureşti on 25 July 2007 for three years.[2] Steaua Bucureşti transferred him for a known fee of €800.000 but because the player was 50% owned by former Romanian football player Gheorghe Popescu, the club had to pay him another €800.000 thus resulting a total transfer fee of €1.600.000. Popescu said that he was mainly responsible for Rada's transfer to Steaua Bucureşti.

Ionut Rada training at Steaua.

He was put on the transfer list by his former club Rapid because the fans believed that the player did not give a 100% for the respective club. With his agreement and with the acknowledgment of George Copos he was put on the transfer list.

Rada currently earns €120.000 per season, but he said that the money is not important to him because it was his dream to play for Steaua in the UEFA Champions League. He was sure that he made the right choice because he also had offers from other teams.

He scored his first goal for Steaua Bucureşti against FC Vaslui in the current season of Liga I. He scored with a perfect header from a corner kick served by Banel Nicolita. The match ended with the score 1–0 for Steaua Bucureşti. He made his debut in the UEFA Champions League group stage against Slavia Prague, match lost by Steaua Bucureşti with 2–1.

He was loaned by his choice to CS Otopeni.

On 28 December 2009 Steaua announced that Rada was sold to Al-Nasr.[3]

Al-Nasr

On 28 December 2009 he signed on a year and half with Al-Nasr.[3]

CFR Cluj

On 11 June 2010, he signed with Romanian Champions CFR Cluj for three seasons. His first match was against FC Basel in 2010–11 UEFA Champions League when he scored his first goal.

Bari

On 19 January 2015, he signed a contract with Serie B outfit Bari, reuniting with former CFR Cluj sports director Razvan Zamfir.

Fidelis Andria

On August 2016, it was announced Rada signed a 2-years deal with the Serie C side Fidelis Andria.

International career

He was selected by Anghel Iordanescu for the Romania national football team on 20 August 2003 against Ukraine, thus being his first appearance for the Romanian national football team. He won 2 caps for Romania.

Honours

Club

Rapid Bucureşti
CFR Cluj

References

  1. ↑ Ionuţ Rada, înapoi în fotbalul românesc, la 36 de ani.. prosport.ro (in Romanian)
  2. ↑ "Rada si Zaharia, noile achizitii!" (in Romanian). steauafc.com. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Multumim, Ionut Rada!" (in Romanian). steauafc.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2010.

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