Costel Pantilimon was presented today at noon as general manager of the Politehnica Timisoara football team.
He was born on 1 February 1987, in Bacău, where he also started playing football, with Aerostar, and where he also made his senior debut. In 2006 he transferred to FCU Politehnica Timișoara, brought by Gheorghe Hagi. He was part of the team that eliminated Shahtar Donetsk from the Champions League.
In 2011 he moved to Manchester City, one of the most important clubs in world football in recent years. He stayed with the Citizens until 2014 and won the Premier League title (2014), the English League Cup (2014) and the English Super Cup (2012). He then played for Sunderland, Watford, La Coruna, Nottingham Forest, Omonia Nicosia (national champion in Cyprus, 2020) and Denizlispor. He retired from playing for the Turkish team in 2021.
He was a Romanian international at junior, youth and senior level. He collected 27 caps for the first team between 2008-2017. He was part of the “tricolor” squad for Euro 2016. A goalkeeper with an imposing physique, he was one of the best goalkeepers of post-december Romania.
Two and a half years ago, Pantilimon was in charge of international relations for Politehnica’s children and youth centre, and a few months ago he completed a training course with the U19 squad for the UEFA A and B coaching license. He has completed the courses organised by the Welsh federation.
Paul Codrea is the club’s new sporting director and Marius Adam (a lecturer at UPT) will be the delegated administrator.
Statements from today’s press conference
Prof. Dr. Eng. Florin Drăgan, Rector of UPT:
Costel Pantilimon, general manager of Politehnica:
Video from today’s press conference:
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