Major problems for Mircea Lucescu » The detail that upsets the preparation of the capital match with Turkey!

On December 9, Răzvan Burleanu, the president of the FRF, announced that the Superliga program from March, to help the national team. Thus, the 2nd stage of the play-off and play-out will undergo a change.

Concretely, the teams that will give players to the lot, will play on Thursday (March 19) and Friday (20), not on Saturday and Sunday, so that the footballers come to the lot in the best conditions.

Foreigners give Mircea Lucescu trouble before Turkey – Romania

Thus, from Saturday March 21, the players from the Superliga, on whom Mircea Lucescu will be based, will enter the training program of the national team.

The major problem for the selector is that some of the foreigners will arrive only on Monday evening, on March 23. Which means that the schedule will be extremely complicated and chaotic.

Basically, Mircea Lucescu will only be able to do two full training sessions. One at maximum intensity on March 24, before leaving for Istanbul, then one on March 25, which will be the official training, at the stadium where the match will be played.

What does the program of the Romanian national team look like?

• March 19-20 – the matches of the teams in the Superliga that give players to the lot

• March 21 – training of the national team with players from the domestic championship

• March 22 – the training of the national team with players from the domestic championship, plus some foreigners

• March 23 – the training of the national team with players from the domestic championship, plus some foreigners

• March 24 – the first training in full formula

• March 24 – departure to Istanbul (evening)

• March 25 – official training (second in full formula)

• March 26 – Turkey – Romania match

What foreigners did Romania have in the last action

In the last two matches in the group, with Bosnia and San Marino, Mircea Lucescu relied on 13 players who do not perform in Romania.

• Ionut Radu – Celta Vigo (Spain)

• Andrei Ratiu – Rayo Vallecano (Spain)

• Deian Sorescu – Gaziantep (Turkey)

• Virgil Ghita – Hannover (Germany)

• Bogdan Racovitan – Rakow (Poland)

• Lisav Eissat – Maccabi Haifa (Israel)

• Marius Marin – Pisa (Italy)

• Razvan Marin – AEK Athens (Greece)

• Vlad Dragomir – Paphos (Cyprus)

• Ianis Hagi – Alanyaspor (Turkey)

• Dennis Man – PSV (Netherlands)

• Valentin Mihaila – Rizespor (Turkey)

• Denis Dragus – Eyuspor (Turkey) – now in Gaziantep — suspended for the match with Turkey!

  *Present in the previous action as a Super League player, Louis Munteanu, if called up, will now come from the USA, from DC United

Complicated program even in the case of a qualification to the final

If Romania upsets the paper calculations and defeats Turkey, it will play in the play-off final with the winner of the Slovakia-Kosovo match. Still on the go.

And the extremely complicated program will continue for the “tricolors”.

The Romanian delegation will return to Bucharest on March 27, one day after the match in Istanbul. In the evening they will have a recovery session, and on March 28 they will have a training session. On the 29th, he will leave for Kosovo or Slovakia. In the evening, the official training takes place, and on the 30th, the decisive match for qualifying for the World Championship will be played.

In which group would Romania be if it reaches the WC 2026

If it passes the two opponents, Romania will play in group D at the World Cup. Opponents would be the USA (one of the organizing countries), Australia and Paraguay.

• Saturday, June 13, 2026, 9:00 p.m. local time (7:00 a.m. in Romania on June 14, 2026)
• Friday, June 19, 2026, 9:00 p.m. local time (7:00 a.m. in Romania on June 20, 2026)
  • vs Paraguay (San Francisco)
• Thursday, June 25, 2026, 19:00 local time (5:00 in Romania on June 26, 2026)