Ioan Viorel Ganea (born 10 August 1973) is a Romanian football manager and striker for Liga IV Sibiu club A.S. Fotbal Club Dumbrăveni.
Playing career
Ganea debuted in Liga I (Divizia A at that time) with FC Brașov in 1994. He went on to play for a number of clubs in Romanian football over the next five years. He joined Rapid Bucharest in January 1999, where he scored 11 goals in the remainder of the season to fire the club to the league championship. He finished that season with 28 goals overall, making him the leading goalscorer.
This form won him a move to Bundesliga side VfB Stuttgart in the summer of 1999. He remained in Germany for four seasons and tasted UEFA Cup action, but was never a regular starter. He moved to Turkish top flight club Bursaspor in June 2003 on a free transfer, but stayed there for just six months before moving to England.
The striker joined Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers in December 2003 after his contract in Turkey was cancelled by mutual consent. He scored three Premier League goals during the 2003–04 season – against eventual champions Arsenal, Leeds and Newcastle – but could not prevent relegation.
He remained with the club for two seasons in the second tier, mostly under the managerialship of Glenn Hoddle. The first of these years was written off after suffering cruciate knee ligament injury on a pre-season tour of Norway. He recovered for the 2005–06 season but never held down a regular starting place, and was released as his contract expired at the end of the campaign.
He moved back to Romania, with Dinamo Bucharest on an initial one-year deal. However, just six months later, Ganea broke this contract to rejoin Rapid Bucharest on a record €350,000 ($462,000) a season. Although contracted to the end of 2009 with Rapid, Ganea left on a free transfer in June 2007 for FC Timişoara, despite the fact that he could have earned up to €1 million a season through bonuses at Rapid.
He returned briefly on the pitch as a professional player only for one game on 22 September 2011 in a Romanian Cup match against FC Steaua București.
International career
Ganea made his debut for the Romania national team on 3 March 1999 against Estonia, scoring both goals in a 2–0 win. He represented his country at Euro 2000 and scored a last-minute penalty against England that took Romania to the quarter finals at the expense of their opponent. He made 45 caps and 19 goals, but his last game was in 2006.
Controversy
At the beginning of his career, while playing at FC Brașov, Ganea beat up the team captain Dorel Purdea.
During his stay at U Craiova, Ganea was involved in several controversies. Ganea kicked his teammate Cornel Frăsineanu in the mouth, which left him without a few teeth and for a while he had to eat using a straw. Eugen Trică tried to calm him down but Ionel threatened to beat him too so Trică backed off. He also had a fight with Silvian Cristescu who threw a massage table at his head. On 2 May 1998 Rapid București needed to win the match against U Craiova in order to be sure that they win the Liga I title so they agreed with George Ilinca who was U Craiova's owner to let them win the game. Some players, including Ionel Ganea did not agree to take part in the arrangement, the game ended 2–2 with both of U Craiova's goals being scored by Ganea, and the title was won by Steaua București.
At VfB Stuttgart he had a fight with teammate Jochen Seitz, for which he was punished by the club with a 10.000 marks fine. One day Ganea was eating an ice cream and coach Felix Magath saw him and told him that he shouldn't be eating food that contains too many calories because he has weight issues, Ganea got mad and threw the ice cream at him.