Radio România Internațional

Tag: national team

  • Romanian football, in free-fall

    Romanian football, in free-fall

    A
    win and three losses. A goal scored and six received. This is the balance of
    the four games Romania played in recent days in Nations League. Romania is currently
    ranked 4th in Group 3 with very high chances of playing in the
    third-tier division of this competition starting next season. Romania first
    played Montenegro in Podgorica on June 4, losing 2-0, in a match when the first
    shot on goal for Romania came in extra time. Four days later, Romania travel to
    Zenica in Bosnia, where it lost 1-0. Romania played slightly better, although
    they lacked scoring opportunities. The only win came last Saturday in
    Bucharest, when Romania defeated Finland 1-0, a score that fueled everyone’s
    hopes for better future performances.

    This Tuesday, however, Romania lost on
    home turf 0-3 to Montenegro, one of the most bitter defeats ever sustained by
    the Romanian team at home. Beyond the poor results, what is more worrying is
    the subpar overall performance of the team, the lack of strength, accuracy,
    discipline and ambition. Headcoach Edward Iordănescu, who is coaching a national team for the
    first time, took full responsibility for the underpar performances, although he
    didn’t say what needs to be done, neither did he mention he might step down. A
    possible resignation would put the Romanian Football Federation in a tight spot
    again, after long-standing difficulties in finding valuable and experienced
    coaches to train the national squad.

    For many years now, the poorly inspired
    coach choices have led to a string of poor performances, failure after failure
    to qualify in European and World championships and growing fan disgruntlement.
    The crisis is itself a consequence of the domestic championship. The Romanian
    champions, CFR Cluj, last season barely made it past the Conference League
    preliminaries, playing in Group D and eventually ranking last. The other
    Romanian clubs didn’t’ even get past the preliminaries. The new football season
    is soon expected to kick off, with new ambitions and hopes. CFR will play in
    the Champions League first preliminary round against Pyunik Yereven of Armenia.
    (VP)



  • Romanian Football is Facing a Major Crisis

    Romanian Football is Facing a Major Crisis






    Nothing sparks
    off more heated debates in Romania save for politics and football. If in
    politics, likes and dislikes are shared between the left and the right, between
    those in power and the opposition, between one politician or another, the
    national football side is believed to represent all the Romanians. And everyone
    seems to share the belief of a former football star, Sorin Cartu, according to
    whom, we’ve had the most lackluster national team since the 70s, after the
    Romanian eleven came a cropper in their attempt to qualify for the round of 16 at
    EURO 2016 in France.

    After conceding a one-nil defeat to Albania on June 19th,
    an unprecedented result since 1948, our footballers ended up in the last
    position of Group A with only one point out of three games. In the first two
    matches, Romania had been outperformed by the host country 1-2, holding
    Switzerland to a one-all draw in their second game. Before calling for the
    resignation of the headcoach and the bosses at the Federation, Romanian sports
    daily Gazeta Sporturilor wrote: ‘with
    outmoded headcoach Anghel Iordanescu at the helm, our team proved to be in dire
    need of a working attack strategy, putting up a show with a lot of mistakes in
    the defence line and by its goalie.’


    A week after
    Romania’s failure at Euro 2016, the Romanian Football Federation chief, Razvan
    Burleanu, has announced that the national team’s coach will not have his
    contract prolonged; Iordanescu’s contract is due to expire this summer. His
    replacement is to be announced by the end of EURO 2016, Burleanu has also told
    a news conference in which he blamed the recent failure on the disastrous
    situation inherited from his predecessor, Mircea Sandu, who withdrew in 2014
    after almost half a century of discretionary rule of the federation. Burleanu
    has described the situation as a ‘desert’ or a ‘swamp’, and to a certain
    extent, pundits agree with him, pointing the finger at the endemic corruption
    in the Romanian football, which is on the brink of bankruptcy and at the bottom
    end of competitive sports.


    Both Sandu and
    the former head of the Professional Football League, Dumitru Dragomir are
    facing corruption charges in several legal investigations. Numerous former
    agents, club chairs and owners have already been placed behind bars.
    Debt-burdened football clubs are struggling with insolvency and some are already
    in the red. If their predecessors in the 90s were in the lineups of famous
    sides such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan or Ajax Amsterdam, Romanian
    international players are today substitutes of teams in the Balkans or the Persian
    Gulf. However, all these are nothing but poor excuses for the lack of
    professionalism of the incumbent Federation bosses, who seem to have come out
    of the blue, and are being held in place with support from the political class
    and the intelligence services, as newspapers speculate. Preliminaries for the
    World Cup 2018 in Russia are due to begin on September 4th, and
    being part of a group, which also includes Denmark, Montenegro, Armenia and
    Kazahstan, Romania stands poor chances to qualify.













  • Romanian Football in 2015

    Romanian Football in 2015

    In recent years Romanian football has been heterogeneous in terms of results and performance, and 2015 was no different from the previous years. For the national team, 2015 was an exceptional year, with the national squad getting through to EURO 2016 and climbing up to the 7th position in world rankings, an unprecedented performance in the 21st century. However, if we look at club teams, no Romanian lineup managed to reach the European competitions group stage in 2015.



    Early in 2015, the Romanian national squad was on top position in Group F as part of the qualifying rounds for EURO 2016. The first official game of 2015 was the one in Ploiesti in March, pitting the national squad against the Faeroe Islands, when the Romanians barely managed a 1-nil win. A string of no-win games followed. On June 13, the away match against Northern Ireland was a blank draw, while the game against Hungary on September 4, also away from home, ended nil-all yet again. The match against Greece in Bucharest on September 7 ended in a goalless draw as well, and a month later, also in Bucharest, Romania once again had a hard time securing a late equalizer in the fixture against Finland. The guests drew first blood on 67 minutes and managed to keep the lead late into extra time, when Ovidiu Hoban scored for Romania.



    Under the circumstances, Romanias qualification hinged on the away leg they played against the Faeroe Islands on October 11, when our national team secured a 3-nil win, came out second in group F and thus booked their ticket for EURO 2016. Northern Ireland was the leader of Group F. The Romanian national team thus added the fifth qualification for a European Championship on their record sheet, following the ones in 1984, 1992, 2000 and 2008. In the 2000 season, jointly hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands, the Romanian national team, with Emeric Jenei at the helm, reached as far as the quarterfinals, which was the national teams best performance ever in a European competition.



    For the national team, 2015 ended with a friendly against Italy in Bologna, when Romania held their opponents to a 2-all draw.



    The highlight in 2016 will be the European Championship in France. Romania is part of group A and will play its debut game on June 10, against France on Stade de France, in a fixture which is also the opener for the whole competition. Then on Parc des Princes in Paris, Romania will be pitted against Switzerland on June 15, and on June 19, the game against Albania is scheduled to take place in Lyon. The first two teams in each group as well as the best 3rd-placed team will go through to the competitions round of last 16.



    We should also note that in 2015 Romanias national squad managed yet another notable performance. In August, Romania climbed up to the 7th position in the world rankings made public by the International Federation of Association Football FIFA. It was Romanias best ranking since 1997.



    We move on to club football. For the first part of 2015, dominating domestic football was Steaua Bucharest, which won the League One championship, the League Cup and Romanias Cup. On May 20, in the League Cup final, Steaua grabbed a 3-nil win against Pandurii Targu Jiu. A week later, Steaua added the 26th champion title to their record sheet. Steauas most serious contender, ASA Targu Mures, lost the game on home turf against the domestic championships last-but-one team Otelul Galati, 1-2. Otelul had already been relegated to the second echelon.



    In Romanias Cup final in Bucharest Steaua overpowered Universitatea Cluj 3-nil, adding the 22nd Cup of Romania to their record sheet.



    Late into the 2014-2015 football season, four Romanian teams qualified for the European competitions preliminaries: Steaua qualified for the Champions League, while ASA Targu Mures, Astra Giurgiu and FC Botosani qualified for the Europa League.



    Steaua went straight to the Champions Leagues second preliminary round, where they went up against Slovak opponents Trencin, whom they defeated 2-nil, away from home, then in the second leg of the tie Steaua were outclassed by Trencin, 2-3. In the third preliminary round, Steaua took on Serbias Partizan Belgrade. Partizan qualified for the playoffs, after a 1-all draw in Bucharest and a 4-2 win in Belgrade.



    Steaua reached Europa Leagues playoffs, but were unable to move further in the competition. In the fixture against Norwegian team Rosenberg they were defeated in Bucharest, 3-nil, while in Trondheim, Steaua won the leg, 1-nil.



    Astra Giurgiu also got into Europa Leagues playoffs. In the second preliminary round, Astra outperformed Scottish contenders Inverness, with a 1-nil home win and a blank draw away from home. Astra also overpowered London team West Ham United, following a 2-all draw away from home and a 2-1 win on home turf. However, in the playoffs the Dutch team AZ Alkmaar outclassed Steaua on aggregate, after on home turf the Romanians managed a 3-2 win, but sustained a 2-nil defeat away from home.


    (translated by: Eugen Nasta)