[Romania] The Editorial of Radu Faur: Road to Euro 2016 – A thin Romanian squad take on the group favorites, Greece

dadyma89 11:13:00 0

Romania will play Greece away in their first game in the Euro 2016 campaign. The two teams met last year, in November, when the Greeks got the tickets for Brasil, after winning 3-1 at home and drawing 1-1 in Bucharest.

Ten months ago, in that playoff double, Victor Piţurcă used a total of 19 players against Greece. Eleven of those players are not in the national squad for Sunday’s game, so even though five of them are injured, it is clear that the Romanian coach wants to change something. The question is: did he make the right choices?

The surprises: four late debutants and two unexpected comebacks

Adrian Mutu has not retired from international football. He is still waiting for a call, but Victor Piţurcă is not impressed with his performances in the last months. So, the 35 year old has little chances of scoring his 36th goal for the national team, which would make him the single top scorer of all time in the yellow shirt. Currently, he shares this first place with Gheorghe Hagi.
Piţurcă remembered instead to bring back two not quite young defenders that haven’t played for Romania in a while. One of them is Cosmin Moţi (29), the center back, slash “goalkeeper” of Ludogoret, who was last called for national duty in 2011. The other one, Gabriel Tamaş (30) proved through over the years that he is the only Romanian football player that can be compared with Paul Gascoigne, outside of the field. But, despite his repeated alcohol related scandals, Piţurcă is giving him another chance.
The surprises coming from the Romanian clubs are: Budescu, Enache, Achim and Grecu. None of them have played for Romania in an official game yet, and the youngest of the four has turned 24 last month.
The offensive midfielders Budescu (25) and Enache (24) have done a very good job with Astra, the team that eliminated Lyon in the Europa League playoff. Another midfielder, Vlad Achim (25), has an impressive start in Liga I, scoring four times in six games, including a winner goal away against Steaua. Dinamo Bucharest’s Grecu (26) is Piţurcă’s biggest surprise and it shows just how little solutions the Romanian coach has for the left back position.
Another debutant, with very slim chances of playing Sunday, is Mitrea (Viitorul), who was called to replace the injured Dorin Goian.

Who’s the goalie?

Romania has two goalkeepers that play in two of the greatest leagues in Europe:  Premier League and Serie A. The real issue, though, is that they don’t really play.   Costel Pantilimon was sick of Manchester City’s bench and joined Sunderland this   summer, just to face the fact that the Italian Mannone denies him a place in the goal.   Tătăruşanu left Steaua for Fiorentina, but he will have to wait for his chance to play for   the first time in Serie A. So, will Piţiurcă chose one of these two goalkeepers, as he   used to in the last few years, or will he give Silviu Lung Jr a chance, the number one   goalkeeper of Astra Giurgiu?

Players in the top four Leagues: the Greeeks are leading by 12-4

English Premier Legue: 1-2

Giorgos Samaras (West Bromwich Albion) vs Costel Pantilimon (Sunderland), Vlad Chiricheş (Tottenham)

 Serie A: 7-1  

Orestis Karnezis (Udinese), Vasilis Torosidis (AS Roma), Kostas Manolas (AS Roma),   Vangelis Moras (Hellas Verona), Panagiotis Tachtsidis (Hellas Verona), Panagiotis   Kone (Udinese), Lazaros Christodoulopoulos (Hellas Verona) vs Ciprian Tătăruşanu   (Fiorentina)

Bundesliga: 3-1  

Stefanos Kapino (FSV Mainz), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (Bayer Leverkusen), Sokratis   Papastathopoulos (Borussia Dortmund) vs Alexandru Maxim (Stuttgart). 

Primera Division: 1-0  

Loukas Vyntra (Levante) vs No Romanian player from Spain’s first League. Torje and   Marica played in Primera Division last season, but now they are both in Turkey, at   Konyaspor.

How Romania’s first eleven could look like Sunday evening, in Athens:  

Tătăruşanu – Luchin, Grigore, Chiricheş, Raţ – Hoban, Pintilii – Torje, Chipciu, Maxim -   Marica