Romania’s national football team
\ndefeated Malta 4-nil away from home on Monday in a match counting towards the
\n2020 European Championship preliminaries. Coach Cosmin Contra changed several
\nplayers in the first-team lineup as compared to the previous match in Oslo,
\nwhere Romania drew 2-all against Norway. In the match against Malta Romania
\nheld possession ever since minute 1, also due to the young midfielders Ianis
\nHagi, Razvan Marin and Tudor Baluta who won numerous balls. Romania opened the
\nscore on minute 7, when George Puscas sent Nicusor Bancu’s left cross into the
\nback on the net. Puscas made it 2-nil on minute 39 after an individual move.
\nAlexandru Chipciu scored the third goal on minute 34 with a superb shot from
\noutside the penalty box. Coach Cosmin Contra was forced to replace defender
\nIonut Nedelcearu, who sustained a nasal fracture and was transported to the
\nhospital. In the second half the pace slowed down, and Romania had to end the
\ngame in ten players, after Alexandru Chipciu was shown a second yellow booking
\nand was sent off. In stoppage time, Dennis Man scored the final goal on the
\ncounter-attack, and thus Romania defeated Malta 4-nil.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Also in Group F Spain defeated
\nSweden 3-nil and Norway grabbed a 2-nil away win over the Faeroe Islands. Spain
\ntops the group tables with 12 points, followed by Romania and Sweden, each with
\n7 points, Norway with 5 points, Malta with 3 points and the Faeroe Islands with
\n0 points. Romania holds good chances of securing one of the two top spots in
\nthe group standings, which secures qualification to the 2020 European
\nChampionship. Romania’s next fixture will be on September 5 in Bucharest
\nagainst Spain. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated by V. Palcu)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania put on a good display of football in the match against Malta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":119614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40940],"tags":[34619,31396,116464],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-119613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-2020-european-championship","tag-malta","tag-romania-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n