Romanian football in 2022
Romanian football fans have had few reasons to celebrate in 2022.
Florin Orban, 30.12.2022, 13:45
The World Cup has again unfolded without Romania’s participation, which has been left outside the competition ever since 1998. The national squad ended 2022 on 52nd place in FIFA rankings, being outranked by the women’s squad who is placed 40th. The only good news from Romanian sports is related to infrastructure, as new stadiums have been built or modernized.
Romania’s national football squad fell to the third echelon of the Nations League, ending the third group of the second division behind Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland and Montenegro. In July the Romanians lost away from home to Montenegro 0-2 and Bosnia 0-1. They beat Finland 1-0 on home turf but were defeated by Montenegro 3-0. The match against Finland, in Helsinki, ended in a draw (1-1) while the match against Bosnia Herzegovina, held at home, although won by the Romanians 4-1, did not matter. The year ended with two friendly matches: 1-2 with Slovenia on Cluj Arena and 5-0 with Moldova, in Chisinau.
The national team’s game throughout the year has been weak, lacking clarity, ambition, force and being full of mistakes. According to numerous experts, this unfortunate situation is due to coach Edward Iordanescu and also to the less competitive footballers as compared to previous generations. No Romanian football player is currently part of the first team of any European top squads. It is, after all, very difficult to build a great team with not so great players, also it’s not impossible. Edward Iordanescu insisted on bringing young footballers to the national team, and the effects of this decision could yeld results in time.
Local competitions have been won by teams from Transylvania. Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe won Romania’s Cup after defeating FC Voluntari 2-1. However, it was CFR Cluj that dominated the Romanian first league’s championship again. CFR Cluj won the 8th champion title in history and the 5th consecutive one. FCSB came in second, followed by Universitatea Craiova. The Academy in Clinceni, Gaz Metan Medias and Dinamo Bucharest fell to the 2nd league.
CFR Cluj participated in European competitions, in the Champions League preliminaries, while FCSB, Sepsi and Universitatea Craiova took part in the Europe Conference League’s preliminaries. CFR did not advance towards the Champions League but made it to the Conference league groups, just like FCSB and ended group G on 2nd place, after three wins, one draw and one defeat, one point behind Sivasspor of Turkey. CFR will be up against Lazio in the play-off in February 2023. FCSB was last in Group B with two draws and 4 defeats.
The Romanian football only made progress in 2022 in terms of new stadiums. The city of Sibiu has a new one, after the stadium built in 1927 was modernized with over 32 million euros and can now host 13 thousand spectators.
