Cristi Neamtu

He was born on August 22nd 1980 in Craiova. He started to play football in Craiova. When he was 18 years old he was called to defend the goal of Universitatea Craiova. In the last match of the season 1998-1999 he debuted for this legendary football team. Our team lost that game with 0-1 but Cristi's evolution was very apreciated by his trainer (Marian Bondrea) and by Romanian mass-media. He learned about football from his older colleagues: Tibi Lung and Florin Prunea, and he was allways prepared to substitute them in the goal of the team from Craiova. In 1999-2000 Cristi Neamtu played another game for Universitatea Craiova against Rapid Bucharest. This time was a match on the field of the oponent team. For a time he was transfered at Electroputere Craiova and Rocar Bucharest. After this short voyage he came back at Universitatea Craiova and plyed for this team in UEFA Intertot Cup. He played in double games against FC Bilys Balshi (Albania) and FC Synot Stare Mesto (Czech Republic). After these games he was transfered at Rocar Bucharest for a half of season and from the winter of 2003 hw came back at Universitatea Craiova. For this time his colleagues were Tudor and Preda. The team was in Cyprus for a preparation of the next season and there, at a training sesion, this young and full of tallent goalkeeper was deadly accidented from one of the players of Universitatea Craiova: Marius Suleap. His nick name was "Schmeichel from Craiova" because of his obviuos similitude with the well known Danish goalkeeper of Manchester United.

All the fans of Universitatea Craiova were in black for these days full of pain. About 30,000 people were at Cristi Neamtu funerals. He remained in the memory of the city and the part of the stadium where take places the most fanatic suporters of Universitatea Craiova is called "Peluza Sud Cristi Neamtu". This name was very easy addopted because he was one of the fans of this team and one of the most used sentences you can hear in this stadium at a football game are: "Cristi Neamtu was one of us!"