Article by Narcis Drejan – Published Monday, 09 March 2026, 09:55 / Updated on Monday, 09 March 2026 09:56
With his spirit and incredible desire to work, Mirel Rădoi is the model of a young coach that you would like to see in all Romanian football. Craiova still regrets it today, I would even say that it is waiting for it again moving to FCSB it can be another tangled story from us.
In Craiova, the coaches are not really regretted, and that's how it's always been, that doesn't mean they weren't respected, except for Lăcătuș. In Bănie, technicians come, go, and often only a few names remain on a track record list.
There is no worship for the bank, for schemes or for tactical speeches, because in Craiova results are demanded, the blue-white spirit is demanded, struggle is demanded. And if you talk to the people in the stands of “Science”, you will quickly notice one thing, they don't really talk about coaches.
Few names, big results
Constantin Cernăianu, whose name is associated with the first title in the club's history, is one of them. Constantin Oțet, the man who prepared Craiova Maxima, the team that made Europe pronounce the name of the city from Jiu with respect, Sorin Cîrțu, the author of the last event, one of those moments when history seemed to stop a little for the blue-whites and Emil Săndoi, the man who came every time the club needed someone to keep him alive, to get him out of a difficult moment. There are few landmarks in a place where memory is not easily granted.
That's why it's interesting that, in recent years, another one has started to creep in among these names: Mirel Radoi. And not for trophies or a spectacular record. It is true that he took the team to Europe again, it was no laughing matter.
What Rădoi did in Craiova is more difficult to explain in a statistic. For that feeling that the team had an identity again, that there was someone on the bench who understood exactly what the public in Bănie was asking for.
Rădoi brought to Craiova that Oltenish malice that the supporters immediately recognize. A state of mind that is transmitted from the bench to the field, it is the energy that makes the team not give up, even when things are not going too well.
That's why, even today, if you talk to supporters of “Science”, you hear a phrase said almost instinctively: “Radoi should come again!”. There have been, in Craiova's recent history, coaches who left a beautiful memory.
Mirel Rădoi / PHOTO: Ionuț Iordache (GSP.ro)
Gheorghe Mulțescu, for example, for that “champagne football” that made the stands stand up and go home with a smile on their faces. But Rădoi's case is different, he had something else, nerve and pride made in Oltenia. The feeling that the team is playing for something more than 3 points.
At FCSB he succeeds if Gigi keeps quiet
Gigi Becali announced that Mirel Rădoi will take over the team from Tuesday, i.e. from tomorrow, for two and a half months. A comeback that seems more like a helping gesture than a classic coaching move.
The boss says that Rădoi comes without asking for money, that he will work until the summer and only then will they discuss a contract. He will come with his boy, Denis, as an analyst, and two second coaches. He will, in theory at least, have the freedom to do whatever he sees fit for the team.
But at FCSB there is always a question hovering above the technical bench: how much can a coach actually decide for himself? Because the relationship with the boss was many times more complicated than the opponents on the field. And Rădoi knows this better than many others, he knows it since he played and had Becali as his patron, but especially 11 years ago, in 2015, in a short term, which ended after a conflict with Gigi and after missing the qualification in a European group.
Paradoxically, in 2023, Rădoi said that he would no longer want to work with Becali and yet, sometimes football has its strange way of returning people to the same place. Mirel Rădoi is now returning for friendship, perhaps for pride, perhaps for the desire to prove that things can go differently, that in these 11 years he has learned, matured.
I think he can easily succeed, no matter what lot he has, just to leave Becali for 3-4 months to the Holy Mountain, to pray, not to have a phone at hand, not to obsessively hear the greeting from the TV: “Good evening, Mr. Becali!“
And in Craiova, somewhere on the lawn, there will probably be people who will follow this story with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia. Because, in a city where coaches are rarely regretted, Mirel Rădoi remains one of the few that the supporters are still waiting for.
