Nicolae Kovács

Who was Nicolae Kovács?

Nicolae Kovács was a Romanian-Hungarian football player and coach. He was a dual international football player and played both for Romania and Hungary.

For the Romania national football team, he won 37 caps and participated in the 1930, 1934 and 1938 World Cups, being one of five players to have appeared in all three of the pre-war World Cups. The other players were Edmond Delfour, Étienne Mattler, Bernard Voorhoof and Rudolf Bürger, according to official FIFA match reports. Later he also represented the Hungary national football team once.

He was the older brother of Stefan Kovács, the famous coach who led AFC Ajax to two European Cups in 1972 and 1973.