Article by Mihai Mironică – Published Monday, November 10, 2025, 8:04 p.m. / Updated Monday, November 10, 2025, 8:04 p.m.
I was delighted, excited, even impressed by what they managed to build for this season, this season, the Mirel Rădoi – Mihai Rotaru – Mario Felgueiras trio. From the first matches, Craiova seemed to be the main favorite for the title. When I also saw how Craiova won in Vienna, after succeeding in the preliminaries, I even thought that the University could be something similar to FCSB from last season, with parallel success in the Super League and in Europe.
At GSP Live Special, many times when I approached the subject of the possible supremacy of Craiova, I received the same reply: in Olteni, something must appear from the inside to spoil the job. I thought it was just a banal stereotype. What can happen when the team is doing well, when the salaries are up to date, when the coach has total freedom from the shareholders?
Well, the followers of that stereotype were, at least for the moment, right: Oltean Mirel Rădoi, the guy with the leather ball and the slickest tracksuit, took his toys and left among his Oltenians. We all know, we all had a Mirel Rădoi in the neighborhood, with the coolest watch, the best tracksuit, the most beautiful ball, but who was the first to pout and go home leaving us with our eyes in the sun because we relied on his ball.
Leaving your football family on the road
How, brother, do you leave Craiova, you being an Oltean who told yourself in public that you put money with your friends from adolescence and get into a car in Severin to go to Craiova to see the University from the stands? It's true that it was a different University, but I've never heard of that detail bothering you now. And how to leave after bringing Craiova's first ever victory in a European group?
Achieved in Vienna in an exhilarating manner. It is true that the University has a win in the last 7 stages, but it is 4 to 6 points behind the leader Rapid. With Rapid, Botoșani and Dinamo having inferior teams to Craiova. And with a championship in which the points are halved…
To be 44 years old and give up nervously in Craiova when you have to fight with Rapid who have Koljic and Barouan as strikers, and with Botoșani and Dinamo who themselves do not have the courage to say that they are fighting for the title… To be in a qualifying place in the Conference League and retire. It means that even though you've shown coaching qualities in the past, you've just given us the idea that you're done with this career.
Before it really started. Because real coaching careers are defined by seniors, not youth. It's like with players, you can't really be called a footballer if you only performed in youth.
Little Tyriac
Perhaps Mirel Rădoi's true vocation is to buy cars and watches. Maybe he will even get the nickname “little Șiriac”. But he will truly become a coach when he understands that you cannot succeed in this job without an essential quality, patience.
The patience that helps you get over a door slammed by Baiaram, over a more disturbing question from a reporter (in reality, Rădoi only had decent questions), over a failure with UTA or over an incorrect decision by a referee (Rădoi doesn't really know what the frenzy triggered by the referees means. For that, he needs, for example, to see how Academica Clinceni was refereed when Poenaru was there coach, to take an example from the world in which he did not set foot, he was only a player at Steaua and a coach at Craiova).
At the moment, Mirel Rădoi is a spoiled brat who flaunts his principles, choosing Gigi Becali as his godfather out of 7 billion people. In reality, Mirel, there is only one principle in football: to have a goal over the opponent at the end of the match and a point over the opponents at the end of the season. And for that you have to fight until the last chance is taken away from you.
