The crisis faced by Romanian football is becoming even deeper. On
\nThursday evening, the Romanian champions CFR Cluj and the vicechampions FCSB,
\nformerly known as Steaua Bucharest, failed to advance to the Europa League
\ngroups, which means that Romania has no side left in the European club
\ncompetitions. Craiova and Viitorul had also been eliminated, in the preliminary
\nstages. <\/p>\n
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CFR, who had won their fourth championship title after a 6-year-long
\nwait, had great ambitions at the start of the European season, and were even
\ndreaming of playing in the Champions League groups, a feat they managed in fact
\nlast year. This time around, however, their international season was cut short
\nafter two defeats, first nil-2 away and then 2-3 at home on Thursday to
\nLuxembourg’s champions, Dudelange. This poor result from CFR, which is being
\ndescribed by the press as the most shameful result in the history of Romanian
\nfootball, can be explained by the club’s debatable new transfers and change of
\nmanager. Thanks to CFR, Dudelange has become the first football side from
\nLuxembourg to play in the group stages of a European competition. Dudelange’s manager
\nDino Toppmoller told the press after the match that eight of his players have
\nother jobs besides football and that they’ll have to find a solution now they
\nwill be playing three matches a week as part of the Europa League groups. <\/p>\n
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Another failure for Romanian club football was FCSB’s failure to
\nqualify for the Europa League groups, even though their opponents, Rapid
\nVienna, were a strong team. FCSB lost 3-1 in Vienna. In their home match, they
\nwere leading 2-0 and would have qualified but for a mistake by FCSB’s young and
\ninexperienced goalkeeper which allowed the Austrian side to score and thus qualify
\nfor the next stage. The club’s eccentric financier George Becali described the goalkeeper’s
\nmistake as divine punishment for his own sins. Football experts, however,
\nprefer more rational explanations for the club’s defeat. Becali, they say, can
\nbe blamed for a lot of things, but these refer mainly to the sometimes chaotic
\nway in which he decides what new players to sign in and his constant
\ninterfering in the team’s line-up. <\/p>\n
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For Romanian clubs, failing to qualify for Europa League, where FCSB
\nat least have had a constant presence in recent years, means significant
\nfinancial losses, even amounting to a whole year’s worth of budget. At the same
\ntime, Romania’s rating will be lower, which will make the path of the Romanian
\nsides to the two European competitions even more difficult. Thursday’s fiasco
\ncomplements the grim picture of domestic football. The national side did not
\nqualify for the World Cup in Russia and doesn’t look like it will return any
\ntime soon to the top form it enjoyed 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania has no football side left in the group stages of European competitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":78632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[30366],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-78631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-europa-league"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n