Florin Prunea

Who is Florin Prunea?

Florin Prunea is a Romanian former football goalkeeper. He was born in Bucharest and started his career for Dinamo Bucureşti. His breakthrough came with U Cluj in the 1988/89 season. In 1991 he won with Universitatea Craiova both the title and the Romanian Cup. Later was the first-choice goalkeeper for Dinamo Bucureşti for six seasons.

Prunea got 40 caps for the national team, and represented his country at the 1994 World Cup, Euro 1996, 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000. In the 1994 World Cup, he replaced Bogdan Stelea as the goalkeeper in Romania's starting eleven after a devastating 1-4 loss against Switzerland, which shattered Stelea's confidence. Although Prunea kept a clean sheet in Romania's final group game against the USA, he performed rather badly in the Round of 16 game against Argentina, conceding an easy goal against Balbo in the 75th minute; however, due to splendid performances by Dumitrescu and Hagi, the result of the game was 3-2 for Romania.

Another mistake in the quarter-final game against Sweden would not go by unpunished, however. After a goal by Brolin in the 78th minute and double goals by Răducioiu in the 88th and 101st minute, the outcome seemed to be Romanian victory yet again; but with five minutes to the final whistle, Prunea gave giant striker Kennet Andersson the chance to level the score to 2-2. The game went on to penalties where Sweden won 5-4 after two spectacular saves by Thomas Ravelli.