The legendary Joseph Lereter passed away last night at the age of 90.

Born on 23 July 1933 in Oțelu Roșu (Caras-Severin county), as Josef Leretter (later known as Iosif Lereter), he started playing football for the local team, Metalosport, in 1949.

Between 1956 and 1967 he played for Știința/Politehnica Timișoara, and also attended university and became a mechanical engineer. He was part of the “Golden Team” of the Timisoara students, as a striker or midfielder, winning the first trophy in the club’s existence (and the first in Timisoara’s post-war football history), the Romanian Cup in 1958, after a final (1-0 against Progresul București, at the 23 August stadium in Bucharest) in which he played right winger.

Photo: Lereter as a player

He was used in a match for the Romanian national team in 1965 (aged 32), 1-3 against Czechoslovakia in Prague in the World Cup preliminaries.

In 1967 he moved to UTA, Politehnica’s rivals, and caught the last glory period of the club from Arad, winning two national titles in a row (1969, 1970), eliminating Feyenoord, the “en titre” holder of the ECC and the Intercontinental Cup, in 1970, and playing quarter-finals in the UEFA Cup in 1972. He played at full-back for the Textilisti and was the first player to reach the 300-match mark in the Romanian first division on 16 October 1971! He put his boots “on the ground” at almost 40, in 1973!

He was then a coach at the Timisoara Constructorul and UMT, after which he dedicated himself to his profession as an engineer at UMT.

After the Revolution, “Loli” (as he was nicknamed) settled in Germany and spent his last period in a nursing home in Timisoara.

He was an emeritus master of sport and an honorary citizen of Timișoara.

In 2018, when he received a diploma of excellence from Politehnica University and a jersey from Druckeria at an event marking the 60th anniversary of winning the 1958 Romanian Cup, Lereter was the only Polite survivor from the team that played in that final. And he came to Timisoara from Germany especially for the event, driving, even though he had just turned 85!

On that occasion, he was the guest of Octavian Stăncioiu for Teleuniversitatea: