Article by Alexandru Stanciu – Published on Thursday, 19 March 2026, 16:32 / Updated on Thursday, 19 March 2026 16:33
Daniel Pancu (48 years old), the coach of CFR Cluj, had an intervention live on TV in which he prefaced the match with Rapid, in the second stage of the play-off.
On his debut on the CFR bench at home, Daniel Pancu found the solution to beat Rapid, the leader at that time in the Superliga, with a score of 3-0. “Pancone” has studied the opponent and is of the opinion that the only change is the fact that Olimpiu Moruțan has advanced further in his training.
Daniel Pancu is not afraid of Rapid: “Moruțan has advanced in preparation, nothing else”
“We know each other very well, this is the third time we have met. Since then, only Moruțan has advanced in training, nothing else. In this play-off you can finish in 6th place how can you finish in 1st place, I don't know if this situation has ever existed.
Certainly, in the winter some players left because they had to help us financially. Here I mean Munteanu, Emerllahu, Hindrich. Another 5-6 players left who were damaging the atmosphere, who were overpaid and did not train at full capacity. Alibek was a good transfer, he helped us a lot.
The atmosphere is very good now, we have a president who lived through the heyday of the CFR. The atmosphere was the thing we started from.
Players left who were not helping and consuming a lot financially. Now a united group has been created, we have organized ourselves very well. We had this fantastic series, a few days ago I realized that if we had lost a single match in the series of 11 victories, it was possible that we would not reach the play-offs.
So far I haven't met the boss. I think he was at one match, he was in Cluj one day, but I didn't see him. Again I return to the culture of the club, here the money has always been received, even if there were slight delays.
All the teams in the play-off know each other very well, you have to go in focused and make as few mistakes as possible. With U Cluj we lost in the last phase after with 10 seconds we had the possibility to have a very good counterattack that could have brought us the victory”, said Daniel Pancu on the show “Liga Digisport”.
Regarding the match between Dinamo and Craiova University, “Pancone” scored: “We want a draw tonight, but it's more important to beat us tomorrow.”
Superliga play-off standings
