Romanian Football in 2023

A review of the best performances obtained by our footballers in the year that passed

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Florin Orban, 05.01.2023, 13:45

After a break of eight years, Romania’s football side is again present in the final tournament of a European Championship. This performance proves that the year 2023 has been the best year of the Romanian football so far. But let’s have a look at the chronological results that led to the aforementioned performance and recollect the other landmarks of the Romanian football in 2023.

Romania kicked off its qualification campaign in March with two wins: 2-0 in an away game against Andorra and 2-1 in Bucharest against Belarus. However the two matches were more like training sessions for the Romanian side for the more difficult matches to come. Only the side of Belarus managed to put a little pressure on the Romanian eleven after they had scored in the end of the game and thus created the impression they can level the points.

The two matches in June ended in draws. A nil-all in Pristina, against local side Kosovo, which cast a question mark upon the future shows put up by the trainees of headcoach Edward Iordanescu. Then came the surprise result in the match against Switzerland in Lucerne. In the first half of the game, the Romanians managed only a lackluster show with a poor defence line. The second half was a little bit balanced, but also dominated by the hosts. Zeki Amdouni put the hosts in the lead in the 28th minute adding a second 13 minutes later. A minute from time, though, Valentin Mihaila latched onto Olimpiu Morutan’s cross on the right side and reduced the difference. The score became 2-1 but three minutes into the injury time, the two Romanian players exchanged a couple of passes, and Mihaila added a second for the Romanians. The match ended in a two-all draw, an unexpected result for Romania.

In September Romania versus Israel ended in a one-all draw. Denis Alibec put the Romanians in the lead with a goal scored in the 27th minute but Oscar Gloukh leveled the points on minute 53. The leg’s surprise was Kosovo versus Switzerland, which ended two-all boosting the morale of the ex-Yugoslav eleven.

In Bucharest though, Romania outperformed the ambitious side from Kosovo two-nil, thanks to the goals scored at the end of the game by Nicolae Stanciu and Valentin Mihaila. Before the matches in October, the Romanian national eleven was ranking second in Group One with 12 points, second only to Switzerland. Their first away game, against Belarus took place in Budapest and ended in a draw, nil-all.

It was followed by the game against Andorra in Bucharest, where our footballers clinched a 4-0 win, a result prompting them to the first position in the ranking, two points ahead of Switzerland, with a game in hand. The last of the qualifying games, in November, proved to be the best our footballers played in the EURO 2024 qualifiers.

The first was a 2-1 win against Israel in Hungary, thanks to the goals scored by George Puşcaş and Ianis Hagi, and Romania assured its place at EURO 2024. Then there was the match in Bucharest, decisive for the first place in the group. Without shining our footballers clinched a 1-0 win thanks to the goal scored by Denis Alibec in the game’s fiftieth minute. The lots cast on December 2nd, have placed Romania in a group with Belgium, Slovakia and a fourth side, which will be known after the playoffs in spring between Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine and Iceland.

We cannot end the review of the football year that passed without a look at the performances obtained by the club sides. Romanian side CFR Cluj made it to the European Spring of 2023 in the Conference League. Unfortunately they were stopped in their tracks by Italian side Lazio in the eighth finals after a 0-1 away and nil-all at home.

The championship of the first Romanian football league was won by Farul Constanta in 2023, and the Romanian Cup was won for the second time in a row by Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe. The teams that represented Romania in the European competitions, the 2023-2024 editions didn’t manage to pass the preliminaries. The year ends with Bucharest side FCSB on top of the Romanian Superleague with 44 points, 8 points ahead the runner-up CFR Cluj. The last two positions, which lead to demotion to the second league, are occupied by Dinamo Bucharest and FC Botosani.

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