The Year 2021 in Football

The Romanian football has been affected by a severe crisis for many years now. This situation, which has been dragging on for so long, has made many to believe that this is actual normality, that the low level of performances, the lowest in the past fifty years, is the normal one.

Football fans in Romania in 2021 hoped for a comeback of the national selection and the qualification of at least one football club in top spring competitions. None of these happened though.

Even with headcoach Mirel Radoi at the helm, the national eleven was unable to qualify for the world cup. Most of the time, our footballers managed only lackluster shows in the preliminaries and the results they obtained were the same.  Part of Group J, Romania started off on the right foot in March with a 3-2 win against North Macedonia in Bucharest. It was followed by a predictable 1-0 home defeat against Germany but our footballers came a cropper against Armenia in Yerevan 3-2 in spite of getting the upper hand 2-1. 

In late March at the European Under-21 Championship co-hosted by Hungary and Slovenia, our side was stopped in its tracks in the group's stage. However, the shows put up by our young footballers coached by Adrian Mutu weren't bad at all; one-all with the Netherlands, nil-all against Germany plus a 2-1 win against Hungary proves that Romanian football still has potential.

The year 2021 has its importance for the Romanian footballers because of their presence in the Olympic Games after an absence of 6 decades. This performance became possible thanks to our squad's 2019 qualification for the semifinals of the European Under-21 Championship co-hosted by Italy and San Marino. In July in Japan, our footballers secured a 1-0 win against Honduras. They got trounced by South Korea 4-0 and made it nil-all against New Zealand. Romania thus ended up on the third position in its group and left the competition.

Romania's national football side resumed its qualifying matches for World Cup 2022 with a 2-0 away win against Iceland in September and the same score against Liechtenstein at home. Their away game against North Macedonia was a goaless draw. After Armenia versus Liechtenstein had ended in one-all, Romania became favourite for a second place in the group that would secure a place in the play-offs and hopefully their qualification for the competition in Qatar.

In October our side lost 1-2 to Germany and got a one-nil home win against Armenia. Sadly, in November our footballers drew their home match against Iceland nil-all and their 2-0 win against Liechtenstein didn't count any more. So Romania ended up on the third position in its group topped by Germany and North Macedonia went into the playoff.

At the level of domestic club competitions, CFR Cluj secured their seventh champion title, which added to those it obtained in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Romania's Cup went to Universitatea Craiova which secured a 3-2 win against Astra Giurgiu in Ploiești.

All the Romanian club sides were eliminated from Europe's top football competitions apart from CFR Cluj, which made it to the groups of Conference League. However, the shows put up by our footballers in this competition were below expectations and they ended up at the bottom of group D.

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