Ion Ionescu

Rapid București

Ionescu, nicknamed "Puiu", was born on 5 April 1938 in Bucharest, Romania, growing up in the Cotroceni neighborhood. He made his Divizia A debut, playing for Rapid București under coach Ion Mihăilescu on 30 October 1960 in a 2–0 loss to Minerul Lupeni.

He spent eight seasons at Rapid, making a successful partnership in the team's offence with Emil Dumitriu, winning the Divizia A top-scorer title twice, in the 1962–63 season with 20 goals and in 1965–66 with 24 goals. In the 1966–67 season, under coach Valentin Stănescu he helped Rapid win its first league title, being the team's top-scorer with 15 goals scored in 22 matches. In the following season he appeared in four matches in the 1967–68 European Cup campaign, scoring one goal against Trakia Plovdiv that helped Rapid advance to the following round where they were eliminated by Juventus. Ionescu reached three Cupa României finals, playing in the last two. The first two in 1961 and 1962 under the guidance of coach Ion Mihăilescu were lost to Arieșul Turda and Steaua București respectively. During the 1968 final he was coached by Stănescu in the loss against Dinamo București. For the way he played in 1967, Ionescu was placed fourth in the ranking for the Romanian Footballer of the Year award.

Alemannia Aachen

In October 1967, Rapid played a friendly game against Alemannia Aachen in which Ionescu scored two goals and in December, Romania's national team played a friendly against Aachen in…

Ionescu played 15 games for Romania, making his debut on 23 December 1962 when coach Silviu Ploeșteanu sent him at half-time to replace Cicerone Manolache in a 3–1 friendly loss to Morocco. His next three matches were in the 1966 World Cup qualifiers. In a friendly against Greece that ended with a 2–1 victory, Ionescu scored his first two goals for the national team. His following three games were in the Euro 1968 qualifiers in which he scored a double in a 7–0 victory against Cyprus. Ionescu's last appearance for the national team was a 2–2 draw against Greece in the 1970 World Cup qualifiers. He also played nine games for Romania's Olympic team, being chosen by coach Ploeșteanu to be part of the 1964 Summer Olympics squad in Tokyo where he played four games and scored one goal in a 3–1 victory against Mexico, helping the team finish in fifth place.

International goals

Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Ionescu goal.

In the winter of 1973, Ionescu was appointed head coach of second-tier club Șoimii Sibiu but failed to guide them to promotion to the first division. From 1975 to 1976, he had a tenure at CSM Suceava. In 1977, he coached Divizia B side Gloria Buzău, guiding them to promotion to Divizia A by the season's end. He then coached the team throughout the entire 1978–79 season and helped them avoid relegation. Between 1980 and 1984, Ionescu had stints at Rapid București, CSM Suceava and FC Constanța. Afterwards, he retired from coaching to work as a lawyer and, for a brief period, as a judge.

Sports commentator Ilie Dobre wrote a book about him titled Ion Ionescu între "templul" Giuleștiului și cel al justiției (Ion Ionescu between the "temple" of Giulești and that of justice), which was released in 2002.