Ionescu (front row, third from left) with Rapid București in 1963
He spent eight seasons at Rapid, making a successful partnership in the team's offence with Emil Dumitriu, winning the Divizia A top-scorer title twice, in the 1962–63 season with 20 goals and in 1965–66 with 24 goals.[4][5][6] In the 1966–67 season, under the guidance of coach Valentin Stănescu he helped Rapid win the first league title in the club's history, being the team's top-scorer with 15 goals scored in 22 matches.[4][5][8][9] In the following season he appeared in four matches in the 1967–68 European Cup campaign, scoring one goal against Trakia Plovdiv that helped Rapid advance to the following round where they were eliminated by Juventus.[4][10] Ionescu reached three Cupa României finals, playing in the last two.[11][12][13] The first two in 1961 and 1962 under the guidance of coach Ion Mihăilescu were lost to Arieșul Turda and Steaua București respectively, while during the one in 1968 he was coached by Stănescu in the loss against Dinamo București.[11][12][13] For the way he played in 1967, Ionescu was placed fourth in the ranking for the Romanian Footballer of the Year award.[14]
Alemannia Aachen
In October 1967 Rapid played a friendly game against Alemannia Aachen in which Ionescu scored two goals and in December, Romania's national team played a friendly against Aachen in which Ionescu netted three goals.[6][15] These five goals impressed the leaders of the German club who wanted to transfer Ionescu to their team.[6][15] During Romania's communist era, transfers of Romanian footballers outside the country were rarely allowed.[5][6][15] Ionescu had to convince the Romanian Football Federation to approve his transfer.[5][6][15] He managed to do so after a meeting with communist politician Gheorghe Apostol, who then spoke with Leonte Răutu.[5][6][15] This intervention helped Ionescu receive approval for his transfer to Germany, making him the first Romanian footballer under the communist regime to obtain the right to play abroad.[5][6][15] Aachen paid $100,000 and a bus for his transfer.[4][5][6][15] Ionescu made his Bundesliga debut on 17 August 1968 under coach Michael Pfeiffer in a 4–1 away victory against Nürnberg.[16][17] In the following round he scored a double in a 4–2 home win over Eintracht Frankfurt.[16] Ionescu netted a total of seven goals in 24 league matches by the end of his first season at the club.[4][5][6][15][16] This included another brace in 4–0 win against TSV 1860 Munich, helping Aachen finish second in the championship through a successful offensive partnership with Roger Claessen.[4][5][6][15][16]
Late career
After two years spent in West Germany at Aachen, Ionescu returned to Romania to play for Crișul Oradea where he made his last Divizia A appearance on 28 June 1970 in a 0–0 draw against Dinamo Bacău, totaling 184 matches in which he scored 107 goals in the competition.[4][5] He ended his career by playing two seasons in Belgium at Cercle Brugge, a club he helped to get promoted from the second to the first league.[4][5]
International career
Ionescu (center) in a match against Turkey in 1965
Ionescu played 15 games at international level for Romania, making his debut on 23 December 1962 when coach Silviu Ploeșteanu sent him at half-time to replace Cicerone Manolache in a friendly that ended with a 3–1 loss to Morocco.[1][18] His next three matches were in the 1966 World Cup qualifiers.[1] In a friendly against Greece that ended with a 2–1 victory, Ionescu scored his first two goals for the national team.[1][19] His following three games were in the Euro 1968 qualifiers in which he scored a double in a 7–0 victory against Cyprus.[1][20] Ionescu's last appearance for the national team was a 2–2 draw against Greece in the 1970 World Cup qualifiers.[1][21] He also played nine games for Romania's Olympic team, being chosen by coach Ploeșteanu to be part of the 1964 Summer Olympics squad in Tokyo where he played four games and scored one goal in a 3–1 victory against Mexico, helping the team finish in fifth place.[2][22]
International goals
Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Ionescu goal.[1]
Ionescu began his managerial career in 1978 at Divizia B club Gloria Buzău, guiding them to promotion to Divizia A by the season's end.[6] He then coached the team throughout the entire 1978–79 season.[6][23] Following another stint at Rapid București, he retired from coaching to work as a lawyer and, for a brief period, as a judge.[6]
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