Sports weekend

Attention-grabbing later this week for all of Romanian sports fans is Romania’s match against Belgium as part of the ongoing EURO 2024

Radio România Internațional, 21.06.2024, 13:45

Romania’s national football team has found itself in a position to seize an opportunity they have never had before: Romania CAN go past the EURO 2024 group stage.
We recall the year 2000 was the last time when Romania reached as far as the eliminatory stage as part of then the European Championship, jointly hosted by Belgium and the Low Countries. Back then, Romania together with Portugal, emerged out of a group England and Germany were also part of.

However, in the quarterfinal, Romania sustained a nil-2 defeat by Italy. At EURO 2024, head coach Edward Iordanescu’s trainees go against Belgium, in Cologne, in their second Group E fixture.

After their stunning 3-nil win against Ukraine, Romania can already secure its in the round of 16, provided they defeat Belgium on Saturday. However, the Romanians are in for a daunting task, since Belgium’s lineup is made of top-notch stars and Belgium is 3rd placed according to national teams’ world rankings.

Belgium’s debut al EURO 2024 has been way below par, since Belgium sustained a a nil-1 defeat by Slovakia and are in dire need of a win against Romania if they want to advance to the round of 16. Ahead of the match against Belgium, Romanian striker Florinel Coman sounded upbeat about his team’s chance to win:

“Belgium is a very strong team. We made our brief analysis, we saw what kind of footballers they have, we gauged their quality on the pitch… With us, unity comes over and above anything else. We proved we had footballers who can win with one single execution, we have players who are capable of running 90 minutes, who can sacrifice themselves for a good result, for this country…The thing is for Romania to be able to cut a fine figure and emerge out of the group stage as we’ve earned our right to believe in ourselves”.

The game pitting Belgium against Romania at EURO 094 is schedule on Saturday, June 22nd, at RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, at 21: 00 local time.