Paul Cazan, nicknamed "Ață" (Yarn), was born on 30 September 1951 in Bucharest and he firstly played basketball before starting to play football at junior level in 1967 at "23 August" București, moving in 1970 at TUG București.[1][2] He started to play senior level football in the 1970–71 Divizia C season at TM București, afterwards going at Steaua București where he stayed half of season without playing, then he moved for the second half to Chimia Râmnicu Vâlcea in Divizia B where he made 8 appearances, helping them avoid relegation.[1][2][3] He made his Divizia A debut on 14 December 1972 playing for Sportul Studențesc in a 3–0 loss against Jiul Petroșani.[1] He stayed with Sportul until the end of his career which consisted of a 16 Divizia A seasons spell in which he made a club record of 465 appearances of which 444 as a starter, scoring 10 goals, making a strong couple in the central defense with Gino Iorgulescu, being many years captain of a team that had players like Gheorghe Hagi, Mircea Sandu, Marcel Coraș or Aurel Rădulescu.[1][4][5][6][7] The highlights his period spent with The Students were a second place in the 1985–86 season, reaching a Cupa României final in 1979 in which he was used all the minutes by coach Mircea Rădulescu in the 3–0 loss in front of Steaua and representing the club in 13 UEFA Cup matches, including a 1–0 victory against Inter Milan, also helping the team win the 1979–80 Balkans Cup and reach the final in the 1976 edition.[1][4][6][8][9] At the 1987–88 UEFA Cup campaign, Cazan started as a player, appearing in the 1–0 victory from the first round against GKS Katowice which helped the team advance to the second round when he was the team's head coach in the double against Peter Schmeichel and Brian Laudrup's Brøndby, losing the away game with 3–0 but managing to win the second leg with the same score, obtaining at the penalty shoot-out a historical qualification to next round where the campaign ended in front of Italian side, Hellas Verona.[1][4][5][6][10] As the team finished domestically on the 14th place in that season, Cazan was dismissed and gave up coaching, instead working in leadership positions at Sportul Studențesc, Politehnica Timișoara, Rapid București, Universitatea Cluj and UTA Arad.[3][5][11][12][13][14]
