Radio Romania International Sports club

Handballer Stefan Birtalan

Radio România Internațional, 21.02.2025, 13:45

Among the great athletes who sadly passed away in 2024 there is former handball legend and head-coach Ştefan Birtalan. He was born on September 25, 1948 in Zalau, northern Romania. When in high school he took up handball, volleyball, basketball and athletics.

Minerul Baia Mare was among the first teams Birtalan was signed up by. Minerul got first promoted to the second-tier division, Division B, and then to Division A. From 1970 to 1985, with an interruption from 1981 to 1983, Stefan Birtalan played for Steaua Bucharest, a team with which he won the domestic championship title 12 times. With Steaua Bucharest Army Club, in 1971 Birtalan was a European Champions Cup finalist. We recall Steaua won the Cup in 1977.

In 1974, 1976 and 1977, Birtalan was awarded Romania’s best athlete title. For the Romanian national teams, he had been playing from 1966 when he made his debut with the juniors’ national teams. In 1968, at the age of 20, Birtalan scooped Romania’s best athlete title. He was then selected for the national seniors’ team, when they won the world title in Paris, in 1970, and in Berlin, in 1974, in then the German Democratic Republic. Also in Berlin, in 1974, Stefan Birtalan was designated top scorer, with 43 goals scored.

Birtalan participated in three editions of the Olympic games. In Munich, in 1972, when Romania walked away with bronze, Birtalan played only one game. However, in 1976, in Montreal, where Romania won the silver medals, Birtalan played in six games and was the competition’s most efficient scorer, with 32 goals scored. In 1980, in Moscow, he participated in an edition of the Olympic Games for the third time around, walking home with a bronze medal. Birtalan played in all six fixtures Romania had on schedule, scoring 23 goals.

As a head-coach, Ştefan Birtalan began his career in the Italian second-tier league, with Follonica. Upon his return to Romania, he was Radu Voina’s deputy head-coach with Steaua Bucharest. Concurrently, Birtalan trained Romania’s men’s youth national team. From 1991 to 1994, Stefan Birtalan was Steaua’s head-coach. Birtalan then activated in Qatar, as a coordinating head-coach of all national handball teams of the Gulf Country.

In 2002, Birtalan gave up being a head-coach altogether because of health problems. He was then co-opted by Steaua Bucharest in the handball section’s management staff.