Another star of Romania in
the 1994 World Cup finals, Popescu was a classy sweeper
or midfielder, who looked like he had all the time in
the world when he played, but it proved to be a short
period of time he spent at Tottenham. He joined in September 1994 for £2.9
million from Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, but lasted less
than a year.
Spurs sold him on to Barcelona, where he won the European Cup-Winners' Cup, a Spanish Cup and a Spanish Supercopa, before he left to move to Turkey with Galatasaray, who won the UEFA cup by beating Arsenal on penalties in 2000. He also had plenty of domestic success with the team in the five years he was there.
Moved on in 2008 to Lecce in Italy, Dinamo Bucharest and Hannover 96 in Germany, playing a season at each before calling it a day on his playing days, having appeared for his country on 115 occasions.
Gica, as he was affectionately known, scored three times in 28 games in his short stay at Tottenham, but never really settled into the team, having to play in defence or midfield rather than his normal sweeper's role.
Having retired from playing in 2003, Popescu now has interests in real estate and acts as a player's agent. He also ran an academy for young players in Craiovia.
It was a shame that Gica did not settle for whatever reason, as he was a classy player, who could bring the ball out of defence and break forward, as he proved when he scored his first goal for the club against Arsenal at White Hart Lane in January 1995 with the only goal of the game.
After leaving the game in Romania, he took up a Director's post and was found to be laundering money and tax evasion in March 2014, for which he received a three year and one month jail sentence.