Mircea Dridea (born 7 April 1937) is a Romanian former football player and manager, who is the current honorary president of Liga I club Petrolul Ploiești.

But in terms of utility, I'm sure on the podium" Dridea was born on 7 April 1937 in Ploiești and at age 15 he was a category one chess player, being brought by his brother Virgil to play football in 1952 at the junior squads of Petrolul Ploiești where his first coach was Emil Avasilichioaie, in 1954 he worked with Manole Rădulescu and in 1955 Traian Ionescu came to the club and formed a generation of juniors which included Dridea, Constantin Tabarcea and Vasile Sfetcu which reached the national junior championship final which was lost in front of Universitatea Cluj.

[1][13] He played in a 2–0 home victory against Portugal at the 1966 World Cup qualifiers after which opponent Eusébio said that he considered Dridea the man of the match.

[3][5][14] In the following years he coached in the Romanian lower leagues at Flacăra Moreni, Metalul Plopeni which he helped promote to Divizia B and Metalul Filipeștii de Pădure with whom he earned a promotion to Divizia C after winning a play-off against Foresta Nehoiu, also having a spell in Egypt at Olympic Alexandria and ended his coaching career in Tunisia at Olympique de Médenine in 1997.

[3][5][7] Mircea Dridea has a total of 121 matches as a manager in the Romanian top-division, Divizia A consisting of 37 victories, 33 draws and 51 losses, also he worked as Petrolul's president on three occasions.