Sports Weekend

A roundup of major upcoming sporting events

Florin Orban, 09.01.2026, 13:45

The European water polo championship kicks off in Belgrade, Serbia at the end of this week. Romania’s side will be part of Group D together with Slovakia, Turkey and Italy. Our athletes will be up against Slovakia on Sunday and will be playing Italy on Tuesday. Two days later, the Romanians will be meeting Turkey in the same group.  According to the Chair of the Romanian Water Polo Federation, Alexandru Matei, the objective of our team is to rank among the first 8 sides and to qualify for the World Cup next year.

In order to achieve this goal, Romania needs to rank among one of the three places of their group. They will also have to end on one of the first four positions in the main group.

Next week will see the European men’s handball championships, a competition also attended by the Romanian side.

Our athletes are in Hungary this weekend for two training games with the host country. In a test match held in Trieste on Wednesday, Romania conceded a 34 – 35 defeat to Italy. The EHF EURO 2026 will be taking place over January 15 – February 1 in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Romania’s representative will be playing in Group B, and will be taking on Portugal on January 16^th, on Denmark two days later and North Macedonia on the 20^th. All the games are to be hosted by the Danish city of Herning.

Let’s now have a look at the latest from football. Adrian Șut, the midfielder of Romania’s champions FCSB will be transferred to Al Ain, a football side from the United Arab Emirates. According to sports publications in Bucharest, FCSB will be getting one million and a half Euros for the transfer and the footballer’s salary will be around one million Euros per season.

Șut has constantly won caps for the Romanian national football side since his debut match, a friendly against Northern Ireland on March 22, 2024.

A couple Romanian football sides have also flown to warmer countries for their winter training campaigns. Dinamo Bucharest, for instance is in Antalya, Turkey, and on Sunday will be taking Gangwon, a team, which ended fifth in the 2025 edition of the football championship in South Korea. On Wednesday, Dinamo clinched a 2-0 win against Swiss side Young Boys Bern. Also in Turkey, FC Hermannstadt will be up against the Azeri side of FC Turan on Saturday, while on January 12^th they will be playing Serbian side FK Napredak Krusevac. On Tuesday, the match pitching Hermannstadt against the local side Kayserispor, ended in a goaless draw.

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