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| ROMANIA QUALIFIES FOR EURO 2008(18.10.2007) |
| (2007-10-18) |
| Last updated: 2007-10-19 15:36 EET |
Romania’s national football team on Wednesday defeated Luxembourg, 2-nil. After 10 games played in the European championship’s preliminary stage, the Romanians are in Group G’s leading position, with 26 points, and have two more matches to play. With their record of 23 points, Holland might still outpace Romania, should the latter fare dismally in their remaining games. The Dutch have also managed a 2-nil victory against Slovenia on home soil.
Bulgaria’s hopes were sunk following their 1-all draw against Albania, played away from home. Romania’s match against Luxembourg was not much of a challenge, although the Duchy team enjoyed a surprising 1-nil away victory against Belarus. And yet, Victor Piturca’s trainees only managed to make their fist serious attempt at a goal after 35 minutes, following Nicola Dica’s free kick. Luxembourg managed to put on an efficient defensive game for the first half, closing the lines of attack the Romanians tried to open up for themselves.
Yet in the 42nd minute, Florentin Petre capitalized on a mistake made by the host team’s defense and scored the Romanians’ first goal. In the 61st minute the Romanians got another goal, when Ciprian Marica scored again, thanks to a ball excellently centered by Chivu. The Romanians slowed down towards the end of the game, as the game in Tirana pitting Albania against Bulgaria was weighing on their minds.
Although the Bulgarians managed to equal the score towards the final, they lacked the stamina to forge a victory for themselves. And, what’s more, Albania failed to score from a penalty-kick they were granted in the final minutes. So the Romanians’ hopes were fulfilled. The draw the Albanians managed in Tirana thrust the Romanian squad into Euro 2008, two legs ahead of the preliminaries’ final stage.
For coach Victor Piturca, the qualification means the fulfillment of the objective agreed with the Romanian Football Federation, when he took on the position in late 2004. It was also Piturca who led the national squad to the finals in 2000, held in Belgium and Holland. At that time Romania came second in a group in which Portugal took the lead and England and Germany were left out. Sadly, the Romanians didn’t manage to go beyond the quarter finals, as they were knocked out by Italy.
(Mihai Pelin)
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