He is famous for having played for Steaua Bucureşti in the 1989 Champions League Final and winning the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup with FA Premier League club Chelsea. Petrescu also received 95 international caps for the Romanian national side.
After playing for Steaua Bucureşti's youth teams, Dan Petrescu was promoted into the first team in 1986 in a game played by Steaua just one month after winning the European Cup. Petrescu was loaned to FC Olt for the 1986–87 season, but asked to come back to Steaua Bucureşti in 1987.
He was an important part of the team which reached the semifinals of the European Cup in 1988 and the final in 1989. Also in 1989 he played for the Romanian national team for the first time, but missed the World Cup of the following year due to an injury.
In 1991 he was bought by Foggia of Italy, in a period when the club saw promotion to Serie A. In 1993 he moved to Genoa.
Petrescu signed for Sheffield Wednesday in 1994 from Genoa, after a successful World Cup for Romania. After one season at Hillsborough he signed for Chelsea and featured prominently there for the next five years. During his term at Chelsea, he was a member of the teams which won the FA Cup in 1997 and the League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup (both in 1998). After falling out with Chelsea manager Gianluca Vialli after a defeat to Manchester United, Petrescu never played for the club again and was not even selected as a substitute for the 2000 FA Cup Final against Aston Villa. Turning down a move to Southampton in August 2000, he instead moved to Bradford City for £1 million, scoring once against West Ham.
In January 2001, Petrescu's former Chelsea manager, Glenn Hoddle eventually persuaded him to join Southampton for a "nominal" fee. He initially settled in well at The Dell, scoring against Leicester and Manchester City in his first few matches. In March, Hoddle left "the Saints" to take up the managerial reins at Tottenham Hotspur and his replacement Stuart Gray dropped Petrescu, replacing him with Hassan Kachloul for the rest of the season. After making only two substitute appearances in the 2001–02 season, Petrescu was released and returned to Romania.
