Bănel Nicoliţă, (born January 7, 1985 in Făurei, Brăila County) is a Romanian football player, nicknamed Jardel after the famous Mário Jardel of Brazil, as both share a goal scoring appetite.

One of six brothers raised by his mother in the small, impoverished city of Făurei, Nicoliţă grew up determined to succeed and his speed and diligence on the field are proof of his unalloyed passion for the game. He is one of the few players from Romania's Roma community.

Club career

He made his debut in Romanian Liga II, playing for Dacia Unirea Brăila, who gave him his first wage - he remembers spending the first €9 he earned buying a much-needed pair of trainers. After, he joined FCU Politehnica Timişoara, making his Divizia A debut at the age of 19. However, he made only 15 league appearances for the club before a €300,000 move to Steaua Bucureşti, at the beginning of 2005. Shortly after joining Steaua, Nicoliţă became very much loved by the supporters for his commitment during the game and the large number of goals scored. Nicoliţă is known as a humble and hard-working, though technical, and loyal player to his club Steaua and also as a gentleman on and especially outside the field. He gave a proof of the latter one in the herb of 2005 when Steaua played in Timişoara against his former club Poli. The Poli fans booed him and chanted "Gypsy! Gypsy!" for the whole 90 minutes, yet at the interrogative before the executive committee after the match he claimed not hearing the word once during the game, thus saving the hostile Poli Timişoara fans from suffering any consequences what so ever for the savage outrageous racist behaviour.

In the spring of 2006 he scored twice in the match against Real Betis, his goals opening Steaua's door to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup, and then he scored again in the quarterfinals, this time against Rapid Bucureşti to help his team reach the semifinals.

On November 1, 2006, he scored an own goal against Real Madrid in a Champions League encounter. Unfortunately for him and the Romanian side, this turned out to be decisive in the outcome of the match. He claimed he couldn't sleep for 48 hours after scoring it.

International career

Nicoliţă won 17 caps for Romania and scored one goal. He also used to be a Romanian U21 international.

International goals

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	June 2, 2007	Celje, Slovenia	Slovenia	2-1	Win	UEFA Euro 2008 Qual.