Before the visit of the FCSB, Nicolae Grigore remembered how he eliminated it 20 years ago: “There were other surprises”

In the first stage of the Romanian Betano Cup groups, FCSB will face a second division team, CS Gloria Bistrița, a team taken over at the beginning of September by Nicolae Grigore and Ionuț Mazilu.

The duel comes at a good time for the people of Bistri: after the break for the national team matches, Gloria achieved great results against teams with claims to promotion: 3-1 with Chindia, 1-1 with Sepsi OSK.

Before Wednesday's duel, Nicolae Grigore remembered how he eliminated FCSB when he played for Rapid's second team, in the 2005/2006 season.

Nicolae Grigore, before Bistrita – FCSB: “There were other surprises, we eliminated Steaua with Rapid II”

“We are meeting the champion of Romania, with the most valuable players, the most players in the national team. A team that seems to be returning to form, they closed the match against UTA extremely quickly. An extremely complicated match awaits us, but we believe in our chance. We enter the field to play football, to do what we know best, to fight for every ball and every inch of the field.

It is not every day that we meet a first league opponent, national team players, worth millions of euros, but strictly organizationally, for us it was somewhat a preparation for what awaits us on Saturday. Playing two days apart, we have to keep that in mind as well. After the match with FCSB, two days away we have the match with Corvinul. As staff, we must also think in this perspective.

We enter the field with the desire to win, to fight for every ball. There were other surprises. From the player position, together with Rapid II, Electromagnetica, we managed to eliminate Steauabeing in that period in the second league. And Rapid won the Cup, I was part of the first team at the Cup final”, said the coach of Bistrița at the press conference.

Paul Chiorean: “It's a dream of mine to play against FCSB with a full stadium”

Grigore was seconded by the midfielder Paul Chiorean (28 years old), player with almost 100 matches at the second league level.

“The atmosphere is very good, we come after a positive result with Chindia and we got a point at Sepsi. I say we will have a nice game with FCSB. Bistrița missed that. The name is not playing, we will give our best.

For me, it's definitely something special. I remember when I was a child and there were matches with Steaua, the stadium was full. It's a dream of mine, and I wanted to play against FCSB in a full stadium. I'm sorry that the stadium doesn't have more seats, they would certainly have been occupied”, he said.

Bistrita transferred a player with matches in the first league

On Monday, 48 hours before the match, Gloria announced the transfer of the right back Sergiu Pîrvulescuaged 22 years. The transfer was possible because Pîrvulescu had been declared free of contract before the end of the mercato period.

Sergiu Pîrvulescu signed with Gloria Bistrița

Pîrvulescu, former international at all junior levels, from U15 to U20, was last registered with the bankrupt Gloria Buzău. He played a total of 18 matches in the first league of Romania, all at Gloria Buzău, and 81 in the second tier.