RRI Sports Club – Football
How can the Romanian national football squad reach the 2026 World Cup?
Florin Orban, 15.10.2025, 13:45
The echoes of the Romanian National Football squad’s victory over Austria have not yet faded. Everyone agrees that the match played on Sunday in Bucharest and won by the Romanians 1-nil was the best since Mircea Lucescu took over the team. The sports press hailed the victory, but there were also voices noting that, if Virgil Ghiță had not been “hit” by the inspiration that allowed him to score in the last second of the game, the joy would not have acquired so many accents of triumph. It would have been just a slightly better match than the others and a draw result that would have fit well into the sad path of the Romanians’ latest developments. The result, however, was good. It just came a little late. The Romanian team is still in 3rd place in Group H of the European preliminaries, with 10 points from 6 games. Austria remains in first place, with 15 points, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 13. Behind Romania is only Cyprus, with 8 points, and in last place, San Marino, with no points.
The Romanian National squad’s objective now is to finish the preliminaries in second place in Group H. This position would allow coach Mircea Lucescu’s footballers to go into the play-off matches as seeded teams and could theoretically bring them an easier path in the fight for a place at the World Cup in North America. To achieve its objective, Romania must, first of all, defeat Bosnia and Herzegovina, away in Zenica, at the Bilino Polje arena, in the match scheduled for November 15. It won’t be easy, especially if we remember the match between the two teams, won 1-nil by the Bosnians in March in Bucharest.
In case of victory, we remain, for the last stage, the one on November 18, in the hands of the results. We have to get past San Marino, which we can do, but, more importantly, we need Austria not to lose the direct match with Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the calculations don’t work out, we can only rely on the results from the last edition of the Nations League. There, Romania won its group, opening its way to the World Cup play-off, in which it will not be seeded. Which means that it will play the play-off semi-final away, with a team ranked higher in the FIFA hierarchy. (EE)
