[6] He also had spells at Știința București and Corvinul Hunedoara, and made 70 appearances for the Romania national team, which he captained in the 1970 FIFA World Cup.

Mircea Lucescu was born on 29 July 1945 in Bucharest, Romania and started playing football as a junior at Școala Sportivă 2 București.

[4][12][13][14] After the loan ended, he returned to play for The Red Dogs, winning the 1967–68 Cupa României, scoring a double in the 3–1 victory from the final against Rapid București after coach Bazil Marian sent him on the field in the 77th minute in order to replace Nicolae Nagy.

[4][16] In the following three editions of the Cupa României, the club would reach the final in each of them, Lucescu scoring a brace in the one from 1971 but all of them were lost in front of rivals Steaua București.

[2][12][26] He played seven matches and scored two goals at the 1972 Euro qualifiers, managing to reach the quarter-finals where Romania was defeated by Hungary, who advanced to the final tournament.

[29] He started coaching while still being an active player at Corvinul Hunedoara in January 1979, when he replaced Ilie Savu, his first match taking place on 28 February 1979 in the sixteenths-finals of the 1978–79 Cupa României, losing with 3–1 after extra time in favor of Divizia B club, Metalul București.

[12][21][22][23][30] During his period spent at Corvinul, Lucescu showed his availability of discovering and promoting young players like Ioan Andone, Mircea Rednic, Michael Klein, Dorin Mateuț or Romulus Gabor.

[31] Lucescu has a total of 58 matches managed as Romania's coach, making his debut on 11 November 1981 in a 0–0 against Switzerland at the 1982 World Cup qualifiers.

[12][23][30][32] He qualified the team at Euro 1984 by winning a qualification group composed of 1982 World Cup winner, Italy with whom he earned a 0–0 on their ground and a 1–0 home victory, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Cyprus.

[12][14][23][30][32][33] At the final tournament, which was composed of eight teams, Romania earned a point after a 1–1 against Spain, but lost the other two games, 2–1 with West Germany and 1–0 with Portugal, leaving the competition without passing the group stage.

[23][39] In July 1997, Lucescu returned in Romania, coaching at Rapid București where he created a team by promoting young players like Bogdan Lobonț, Răzvan Raț and Daniel Pancu, mixing them with players he coached in the past like Dănuț Lupu, Ioan Sabău and Mircea Rednic, thus creating a team that won the 1997–98 Cupa României and after a short spell at Inter Milan, he returned at Rapid, winning the 1998–99 Divizia A, which was the first championship title won by the club after 32 years, also winning the 1999 Supercupa României.

[12][14][23][31][47][48] In December 1998, Lucescu was named coach at Inter Milan, working with players such as Ronaldo, Roberto Baggio, Andrea Pirlo, Javier Zanetti and Ivan Zamorano, managing to reach the quarter-finals in the 1998–99 Champions League, being eliminated with 3–1 on aggregate by Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, who eventually won the competition.

[12][14][23][50][51][52][53] Under Lucescu's leadership, Galatasaray reached the quarter-finals on the UEFA Champions League during the 2000–01 season where after a 3–2 victory in the first leg, they lost with 3–0 in the second against Real Madrid.

[59] During the period spent at Beşiktaş, he bought Romanian players Daniel Pancu, Adrian Ilie and Marius Măldărășanu at the club.

He led Shakhtar into the semi-finals of Europa League during his last season in charge, being eliminated by defending champions and eventual winners Sevilla.

In the beginning of his period spent at Shakhtar, Lucescu had Romanians Flavius Stoican, Cosmin Bărcăuan, Daniel Florea, Ciprian Marica and Răzvan Raț under his command, but only the latter stayed with him to win the 2008–09 UEFA Cup, in later years he relied heavily on young Brazilian players such as Willian, Fernandinho, Douglas Costa, Luiz Adriano, Elano, Alex Teixeira, Ilsinho, Jádson, Brandão or Matuzalém.

[85] On 23 July 2020, Lucescu returned to Ukraine after signing a two-year contract with the main rival of his former club Shakhtar Donetsk, Dynamo Kyiv.

The reason behind his actions was that Dynamo Kyiv fans fiercely protested the decision to hire Lucescu because of his long-term spell at Shakhtar.

Dynamo president Ihor Surkis initially told press that he knew nothing about the resignation, and later that day both sides confirmed that their cooperation will in fact continue.

He initially wanted to stay put,[91] but fled to his homeland on the advice of the Romanian embassy, as a way to help Dynamo's foreign players get to safety.

[92] On 3 November 2023, Lucescu announced that he would step down as the manager of Dynamo Kyiv after a 1–0 home defeat against their rivals Shakhtar Donetsk, and on the following day he was succeeded by Oleksandr Shovkovskyi.