Gică Popescu chose a surprise opponent for Romania in the play-off: “That's what I want”

The former Galatasaray centre-back wants to see the current gap between the two national teams. Romania will play away from home in the World Cup semi-final, and the possible opponents are Italy, Turkey, Poland and Ukraine.

Gică Popescu: “I want Turkey to be our opponent”

“I want Turkey to be our opponent. I want to see the level at which Turkey is compared to us now. In the 90s, we were far above Turkey, I want to see now”declared Gică Popescu, on Antena 1.

The former defender from Barcelona also analyzed the course of the “tricolors” in the preliminary group, but also the failure with 1-3 from Zenica, in front of Bosnia. Romania ended the group in 3rd place, but qualified for the play-off through the Nations League.

I remember how happy we were at the draw of the group, if someone asked us to choose a group we did not choose a group so easily. Another disappointment.

We were hoping to win in Bosnia, but we lost in a manner that does us no credit at all. The first half was good, the Bosnians were really booing their team. At the break with Bosnia I don't know what happened, the score in the second half was disastrous.

We are in 3rd place and we are waiting for the draw of the draw. It was normal for Mircea Lucescu to change the team with San Marino, he removed the players who did not play a good game there and who did not have a good morale.

I was ashamed when I saw the silly explanations, with the lawn, the field, the stadium. What did they expect, to wait for us with flowers? When you go on the pitch and you're a professional, there's no stands, no whistles, there's only focus and what you have to do on the pitch.

We had to have courage, to hold on to the ball. We had to not let them take the ball to the edges and throw it into the box, we had to react to the movements made by the Bosnians.

– Gică Popescu, former international

116 matchesGică Popescu played for Romania