Mircea Costache II

Mircea Costache II (2 May 1940 – 16 February 2016) was a Romanian handball player and coach who played as a pivot for Dinamo București and for the national team. He scored the winning goal in the 1961 World Championship final.

After retiring he became a coach in his native Romania and abroad in Algeria and Portugal. Costache led the national team of Algeria to a World Cup for the first time in 1974.

Between 1988 and 1995 he was named coach of both the Portugal senior national team and the Portuguese youth sides, with whom he won the European Youth Handball Championship in 1992.

Costache was also an associate professor at the Moderna University in Lisbon from 1997 to 2002.

Player

Dinamo Bucharest

• Romanian League: 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966
• European Cup: 1965
  • Runner-up: 1963

National team

Romania

• World Champion: 1961, 1964
  • Bronze medal: 1967

Coach

Nadit Alger

• Algerian League: 1974, 1975
• Algerian Cup: 1973

Águas Santas

• Campeonato Nacional (III Divisão): 1996

Algeria

• Winner of the gold medal at the 1973 African Games
• Winner of the gold medal at the 1975 African University Games
• Winner of the silver medal at the 1976 African Championship
• Winner of the bronze medal at the 1975 Mediterranean Games

Portugal

• Winner of the gold medal at the 1992 European Youth Championship
• Winner of the bronze medal at the 1995 IHF Junior World Championship

Distinctions

• Ordinul Muncii: 1961
• Maestru Emerit al Sportului: 1961
• Medalia "Meritul Sportiv": 1964
• Medalha de Bons Serviços Desportivos (Portugal): 1993
• Medalia Serviciu Credincios: 2001
• Ordinul "Meritul sportiv" clasa II-a: 2009
• Campion de Legendă: 2009

• Costache, Mircea (2013). Uma vida, a mesma paixão (in Portuguese). Impuls. ISBN 978-973-8132-78-8.