Eugen Pojoni
Personal information
Date of birth (1942-01-01) 1 January 1942[1]
Place of birth Ibănești, Mureș, Romania[1]
Height 1.82 m (6 ft 0 in)[1]
Position(s) Centre back[1]
Youth career
1957–1961 Avântul Reghin
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1961 Avântul Reghin
1962 Viitorul București 1 (0)
1963–1967 Crișul Oradea[lower-alpha 1] 57 (2)
1967–1977 UTA Arad 247 (9)
Total 305 (11)
International career
1961 Romania U18
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Eugen Pojoni (also known as Jenő Pozsonyi;[2] born 1 January 1942) is a Romanian former football defender.[1]

Career

Eugen Pojoni was born on 1 January 1942 in Ibănești, Mureș, Romania and as a child he met his father when he was 5 years old who was a prisoner of the Russians in World War II, later in 1955 his parents took him on the Reghin Municipal Stadium to see the Divizia A match between Avântul Reghin and UTA Arad where he was impressed by UTA's style of play led by József Pecsovszky, thus becoming a fan of the team, hoping to play for it one day.[1][3][4][5][6] He started to play for the junior squads of Avântul, then he started to play for the senior team in the lower leagues.[1][3][4][5][6] He was noticed by Romania's under 18 national team coach Gheorghe Ola who called him up to play at the 1961 European Under-18 Championship held in Portugal where the team did not pass the group stage.[3][5][6] During the period spent in Portugal at the final tournament Pojoni claims he had a discussion with Benfica's coach Béla Guttmann who offered him to stay in Portugal and sign with his team but Pojoni declined the offer so after the final tournament he went with coach Ola to play for Viitorul București where he made his Divizia A debut on 26 August 1962 in a 2–2 against UTA, which would remain his only appearance for Viitorul as in the middle of the season he went to play for Crișul Oradea in Divizia B.[1][3][5][6] In his first season spent at Crișul, Pojoni helped the club gain promotion to Divizia A where he would play for the next three seasons, a period in which he was absent from the field for about one year because he suffered from hepatitis.[1][3][5][6] At the end of the 1965–66 season, Crișul relegated back to Divizia B where he played for a while but he wanted to go back to Divizia A football as he had an offer from UTA, but the club's officials did not allow him to go, eventually after dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu talked with the first secretaries from both towns, the transfer was approved.[1][3][5][6] He stayed with UTA until the end of his career which consisted of a 10 Divizia A seasons spell in which he won two consecutive titles with coach Nicolae Dumitrescu, at the first contributing with two goals scored in 29 appearances and in the second he played 26 games.[1][3][4][5][6][7] He also made some European performances with The Old Lady as eliminating Feyenoord in the 1970–71 European Cup who were European champions at that time and reaching the 1971–72 UEFA Cup quarter-finals where they were eliminated by Tottenham Hotspur who would eventually win the competition.[1][3][4][5][6][8] Eugen Pojoni's last Divizia A match took place on 1 September 1976 in a 3–0 away loss in front of FC Constanța, having a total of 295 appearances and 9 goals scored in the competition, also making 16 appearances in European competitions.[1] During his career, Pojoni was called-up by coach Angelo Niculescu at Romania's senior team in order to play in some friendly games, but during one of them in which he was sent by Niculescu to warm-up and shortly afterwards told to sit on the bench because he will not be sent on the field, he got upset and told the coach to not call him anymore.[3][4] After he ended his playing career, Pojoni worked as a coach in the Romanian lower leagues, during his spell at the local club from Oravița he discovered and debuted at age of 14 in Divizia C football, the future Romanian international Dorinel Munteanu.[3][4][6]

Honours

Crișul Oradea

UTA Arad

Notes

  1. ↑ The statistics for the 1966–67 Divizia B season are unavailable.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Eugen Pojoni at RomanianSoccer.ro (in Romanian)
  2. ↑ "Aki nemet mondott Guttmann-nak: Pozsonyi Jenő, az aradi bástya".
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "70 de ani de UTA. Povestea fantastică a unuia din campionii ultimei generații de aur. Eugen Pojoni: "Am fost 16 mari și tari". Ceaușescu l-a ajutat să joace la UTA!" [70 years of UTA. The fantastic story of one of the champions of the last generation of gold. Eugen Pojoni: "We were 16 big and strong". Ceaușescu helped him to play at UTA!] (in Romanian). Sportarad.ro. 5 April 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Povestea fantastică a unuia din campionii ultimei generații de aur. Eugen Pojoni: "Am fost 16 mari și tari". (II)" [The fantastic story of one of the champions of the last generation of gold. Eugen Pojoni: "We were 16 big and strong". (II)] (in Romanian). Glsa.ro. 15 April 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Eugen Pojoni – Povestea unui Campion" [Eugen Pojoni – The story of a champion] (in Romanian). Glasulvailor.ro. 27 September 2018. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Aki nemet mondott Guttmann-nak: Pozsonyi Jenő, az aradi bástya" [The one who said no to Guttmann: Jenő Pozsonyi, the Arad bastion] (in Romanian). Fourfourtwo.hu. 26 May 2021. Archived from the original on 27 May 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  7. ↑ "Romania National Champions". RomanianSoccer. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  8. ↑ "Fotbalul de altă dată: UTA Arad – Tottenham Hotspur, Cupa UEFA, 1972" [Football of another time: UTA Arad - Tottenham Hotspur, UEFA Cup, 1972] (in Romanian). Tackle.ro. 10 February 2019. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
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