| Gavrilă Birău | |
| Birth Date: | 11 August 1945 |
| Birth Place: | Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania |
| Height: | 1.75 m |
| Position: | Right back |
| Youthyears1: | 1958–1964 |
| Youthclubs1: | Textila Sfântu Gheorghe |
| Years1: | 1965–1976 |
| Caps1: | 319 |
| Goals1: | 3 |
| Years2: | 1976–1977 |
| Nationalyears1: | 1966 |
| Nationalteam1: | Romania U23[1] |
| Nationalcaps1: | 1 |
| Nationalgoals1: | 0 |
| Manageryears1: | 1981–1982 |
| Managerclubs1: | Strungul Arad |
| Manageryears2: | 1982–1983 |
| Manageryears3: | 1987–1988 |
| Manageryears4: | 1989–1990 |
Gavrilă Birău (also known as Gabor Biro; born 10 February 1945) is a Romanian former football right defender and manager.[2] [3]
Gavrilă Birău was born on 10 February 1945 in Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania and practiced ice hockey, skiing, boxing and football until he was around the age of 18 when he started focusing only on football.[2] [3] He played junior level football at Textila Sfântu Gheorghe as a forward and in 1963 coach Gheorghe Ola called him up at a Romania youth team for a match against Turkey in which he was seen by UTA Arad's coach Nicolae Dumitrescu who proposed him to come at UTA and Birău accepted, Dumitrescu giving his Divizia A debut on 14 March 1965 in a 1–0 home victory against Steagul Roșu Brașov, also from this point on his playing position was right back.[2] His first performance was reaching the 1966 Cupa României final which was lost with 4–0 in front of Steaua București, afterwards he won two consecutive titles, Dumitrescu using him 30 matches in both of these seasons, scoring a goal in the second one.[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] He also made some European performances with The Old Lady as eliminating Feyenoord in the 1970–71 European Cup who were European champions at that time and reaching the 1971–72 UEFA Cup quarter-finals where they were eliminated by Tottenham Hotspur who would eventually win the competition.[2] [3] [4] [5] [7] He spent 12 seasons at UTA, his last Divizia A match being a 3–2 away loss against ASA Târgu Mureș, having a total of 319 appearances and three goals scored in the competition, also making 14 appearances in European competitions.[2] Birău retired after he spent a season in Divizia B at Aurul Brad.[3] After he ended his career, Birău coached teams from Arad like Strungul, Indagrara, CPL and even UTA on a few occasions, also he worked as a youth coach.[2] [3] A book about him was written by Radu Romănescu and Ionel Costin, called Gabi Birău – povestea fundașului de fier (Gabi Birău – the story of the iron defender), which was released with the occasion of his 73rd birthday.[3] [4] [5]
UTA Arad