Sports weekend

The latest from women's handball and football

Radio România Internațional, 11.10.2024, 13:45

Attention-grabbing this coming weekend is the football match pitting Romania against Cyprus. The game will be played in Larnaca and counts towards the third round of the Nations league’ third tier, Group C2. Media in Bucharest has mentioned that roughly 4,000 Romanian supporters are expected to go the stadium, given that the arena playing host to the game has a seating capacity of 8,000 seats.

The Romania national squad is fresh from two winning confrontations in the Nations League’s first two rounds in September. We recall Romania won the game against Kosovo, 3-nil away, also winning the match against Lithuania at home, 3-1. In the first round, Cyprus defeated Lithuania away from home, 1-nil, then sustained a nil-4 home defeat by Kosovo. The history of the direct confrontations between Cyprus and Romania includes 9 wins for Romania, 3 draws and a win for Cyprus. Head-coach Mircea Lucescu’s trainees’ set target is to obtain six points in two games

Matches counting towards the Champions League in women’s handball are scheduled at the weekend. In Group A on Saturday, Gloria Bistriţa-Năsăud play a home game against Croatia’s Podravka Koprivnica. According to the as-it-stands table, Gloria are 5th-placed, with two points. With zero points on their record sheet, Podravka and Denmark’s Nykøbing Falster are at the bottom of the table. CSM Bucharest play an away game in Ljubljana, against Krim. Holders CSM are 4th-placed with three wins and one defeat so far. Krim are 2nd-placed, after four consecutive wins.

In Group B, Rapid Bucharest on Sunday play an away game against Danish team Odense. Rapid have won their first match in the group, against Buducnost Podgorica, at home, and drew against Vipers Kristiansand, away. Then Rapid went no less than eight goals down in the home game against Ludwigsburg, then away from home, Denmark’s Team Esbjerg were seven goals clear in the match against Rapid Bucharest.

Notwithstanding, Rapid are highly likely to get back into shape: we recall that in the domestic championship this past Wednesday, Romania’s vice-champions trounced SCM Universitatea Craiova, 26 to 17. Also on Sunday, in Europe’s second tier league the EHF European League, in a match counting towards the second preliminary round, Sport Club Municipal Râmnicu Vâlcea play the second leg against Slovak team Dunajská Streda. In the first leg, the Romanian team, won, 28-26.