Article by Justin Gafiuc, Cristi Preda (photo) – published Monday, September 08, 2025, 11:55 / Updated Monday, September 08, 2025:03
Elias Charalambous, 44, Cypriot coach of FCSB, warns Romania's representative that he will have a complicated duel on Tuesday evening, in the preliminaries of the World Championship in 2026.
On Tuesday evening, 9:45 pm, the GSP stadium in Nicosia will host a duel between Cyprus and Romania, the only official match of our representative this month.
At the previous visit to Cyprus, in the Campaign of the League of Nations, on October 12, 2024, the “tricolors” won in the score of non-presentation, 3-0, with the match solved from the first half. This time, Elias Charalambous, a coach who knows both football worlds very well, expects Romania to be not as simple.
Charalambous guards Mircea Lucescu before Cyprus – Romania: “They have a new philosophy of play, the results will come” “
“It will certainly be much more difficult than last year's match. The Cyprus national has a new coach. They have changed the style of play, philosophy. Against Austria they made a very good game and I expect Romania to have a very, very difficult match.
I saw the match with Austria, they had great opportunities to score. I do not know if the penalty from the goal received was granted correctly, I think it was a hard decision for Cyprus. But in general, the Cyprus team has quality. We have good players and I think the results will come.
From what I talked to some players and from what I saw, they want to play football, to dominate the game. Sometimes we played as a small team, we were just defending ourselves but now The philosophy, the mentality of the new coach is to play football, to have possession. I agree with that.
To achieve results, to gather points, you must also play with the ball, not just wait and play on the counterattack. He is a coach who has prepared big teams from Greece. Talking to some players, they told me they feel it and that they had more confidence”, Commented Charalambous in an interview with the Romanian press near the beach in Larnaca.
The coach in question, the Greek Apostolos Mantziosex-aris and AsteraS Tripoli, was installed in January. Under his command, Cyprus won a single victory in 4 official matches, the one with San Marino, and drew in the friendly with Bulgaria, 2-2. But the Cypriots showed encouraging signs in the previous two official parties, at 0-2 with Romania and 0-1 with Austria.
