Article by Alexandru Stanciu – Published Friday, December 19, 2025, 7:41 p.m. / Updated Friday, December 19, 2025, 7:43 p.m.
Mihai Stoica (60 years old), the president of the Board of Directors at FCSB, commented painful elimination suffered by the University of Craiova from the only group in the Conference League, after 2-3 with AEK Athens, a match in which the Superliga team was leading 2-0 in the 90th+7th minute.
The FCSB official is of the opinion that Filipe Coelho made a mistake with the changes made during the first half, which destabilized the team.
Carlos Mora replaced Monday Etim in the 66th minute, and in the 80th minute Coelho made a double change, Alexandru Crețu and Lies Houri replaced Ștefan Baiaram and Alexandru Cicâldău. Two minutes before the 2-2 goal, in 90+6, Coelho changed two more players to keep the score. Vasile Mogoș and Nikola Stevanovic replaced Anzor Mekvabishvili and Teles, but the Greeks managed to score twice more and eliminate Craiova University from the competition for good.
Mihai Stoica, after the dramatic elimination of the University of Craiova from the Conference League: “Maybe that catastrophe will not happen”
“We've been through that. I don't think he can suffer the same way compared to us after the Middlesbrough game. One could take you into the European spring of the third European inter-club competition, another was a UEFA Cup semi-final. It's a bit of a drama, really, to what happened with the French national team for World Cup qualification in 1994. They had a point to make at home and conceded in the last minute, after they had the ball in possession.
It was a very strange thing, everything happened against Craiova in the end. I never thought that Crystal Palace could match KuPS.
Craiova is one of the teams with 7 points and a goal difference of -2 and is the only one below the line. They also had Sparta Prague in hand, a draw was good for both. Now I won't forget the gestures the Greeks made on the bench when the score was 2-2, they showed that the result was good. Maybe this catastrophe wouldn't happen if the changes weren't made.
I once did not let Reghecampf make a change in a Legia play-off match. He wanted to take Piovaccari off in the 55th minute and put Cristea on. I told him: “don't do that”, and he said: “he's passed out!”. I told him: “That's what happened to Middlesbrough with Jacob.” It was obvious that he couldn't anymore, he was coming after a period of inactivity, but maybe if he stayed on the field… In the end, he didn't change him. Piovaccari came out in the 88th minute, we also scored a goal then, but we qualified.
Coaches make two types of mistakes. When the team needs to score, they take out midfielders and bring in strikers. When they don't have to score, they take out midfielders and put in defenders. I don't mean Coelho, there are hundreds of coaches who do this. This is a big mistake!
In all matches, the battle takes place in midfield. If you put in a second striker and lose a midfielder, who passes forward? If you bring in a defender and take out a midfielder, you invite the opposition to attack you. You think that the changes were made tactically to waste time”, declared Mihai Stoica, at Prima Sport.
