Wherever Adrian Mutu went, controversy usually followed. The Romanian striker spent just over a year at Chelsea in 2003-04 after then manager Claudio Ranieri put him at the top of his transfer wish list, but the move ended in tears for all parties – and that’s just one. a chapter in the amazing story of Mutuandi.
The striker started making waves in his homeland as a teenager before four goal-scoring years in Italy convinced Chelsea to leave. Ranieri waxed lyrical about the acquisition and claimed that Mutu had a predatory instinct: a snake.
Then the young man was already married to his first wife – TV host Alexandra Dinu – and received a nomination for the Ballon dand#039;Or award. He did fall short of winning the honor, which of course would have been an important feather in his cap, but he won the same number of votes as Brazilian legend Ronaldinho.
Mutuandi’s only full season at Stamford Bridge, in which he scored 10 goals in all competitions, ended when a Romanian tabloid magazine secretly photographed him allegedly having a romantic encounter with porn star Laura Andresan. even suck his blood.
Later, in 2004, he took a drug test that returned traces of cocaine. He was banned for seven months by the FA and sacked by Chelsea. Mutu received his second ban six years later while playing in Italy after testing positive for an appetite suppressant.
The striker and his spell at Stamford Bridge quickly disappeared when Ranieri was replaced in the dugout by Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese quickly understood the party style of Mutu’s and the pair never saw eye to eye.
In 2005, Mutu remarried after a messy divorce. He and Dominican model Consuelo Matos Gomez spent the next ten years together and had two children.
So far Mutu has served his first ban and returned to contention with Juventus, but the most profitable period of his career took place during five seasons at Fiorentina. In total, the Ballon d’Or candidate scored 70 goals in 143 games for La Viola.
Spells with Cesena and Ajaccio followed before career-ending trips to India and back to Romania. Another unexpected point was added to Mutu’s biography in 2014 when he appeared in a music video by iconic rapper Snoop Dogg.
And the same year he retired from professional football, he married for the third time. He and former Miss Romania Sandra Bachici had their first child in 2016 before Mutu took over.
Mutu, now 45, last year managed Neftchi Baku of Azerbaijan..