Mircea Axente (footballer, born 1944)

Mircea Axente (born 9 December 1944) is a Romanian former football midfielder and referee.

Career
Mircea Axente was born on 9 December 1944 in Arad, Romania and started playing junior level football at Gloria Arad but after he was seen by UTA Arad's coach Nicolae Dumitrescu at a school championship, he was signed by The Old Lady where he started his senior career making his Divizia A debut on 21 June 1964 in a 2–0 away loss in front of Știința Cluj. 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 with coach Dumitrescu, at the first contributing with 8 goals scored in 29 appearances and in the second he played 30 games and scored 6 goals. He also made some European performances with The Old Lady as giving the assist to Florian Dumitrescu who scored UTA's decisive goal that eliminated 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. He spent 13 seasons at UTA, his last Divizia A match being a 3–2 away loss against ASA Târgu Mureș, having a total of 286 appearances and 42 goals scored in the competition, also making 11 appearances in European competitions. Axente retired after he spent a season in Divizia B at Rapid Arad. Afterwards he became a referee, arbitrating matches in Romania's top-league Divizia A and at international and European club level. A book about him was written by Radu Romănescu and Ionel Costin, called Mircea Axente, de pe maidanele Aradului în casa campioanei lumii (Mircea Axente, from the slopes of Arad in the world champion's house).

Honours
UTA Arad
 * Divizia A: 1968–69, 1969–70
 * Cupa României runner-up: 1965–66