[1][2][4][5][6][7] "An ideal centre-back, unsurpassed heading, very good clearances on both sides, striking the ball with both feet perfectly and a superb spirit of self-sacrifice hard to imagine, to which is added the attachment to Universitatea for 25 years" Mircea Luca was born on 3 August 1921 in Zalău, Kingdom of Romania and he started to play football in 1932, aged 11 at the junior center of Universitatea Cluj.

[4][5] He made his debut for the senior squad at age 18 under coach Ferenc Nyúl who used him as a winger on 18 November 1939 in the last game of the 1938–39 Divizia B season which was a 6–1 home win over Industria Sârmei Câmpia Turzii.

[5][9] Mircea Luca became "U" Cluj's captain in 1941, in the hardest period of the club's history, as in 1940, the team moved from Cluj-Napoca to Sibiu as a result of the Second Vienna Award, when the northern part of Transylvania was ceded to Hungary.

[4][5] In December 2007 in an interview for the Gazeta Sporturilor newspaper, Luca said:"Only I know how I gathered them for a match with Ferar (...) They had a strong team, as Cluj never had, one like a racing horse.

[5] During the first leg, while the score was 1–1, goalkeeper Nicolae Szoboszlay got injured, so Luca took his place, managing to not concede a goal, as the game ended with a draw.

[5] During this period the team also reached the 1949 Cupa României final in which coach Iuliu Baratky used Mircea Luca all the minutes in the eventual 2–1 loss in front of CSCA București.

[5][13][14] He has a total of 176 appearances with one goal scored in Divizia A, also he is known for playing for at least one game on all the main positions in football: goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward.

Even its victory in the Cupa României is the result of some calendar coincidences, when the students found the maximum form through the laws of chance.