Article by Daniel Scorpie – Published Monday, March 23, 2026, 4:35 p.m. / Updated Monday, March 23, 2026, 4:40 p.m.
That's all Mircea Lucescu was missing: to remain without a goalkeeper! The crisis in the attack of the national team was not enough, and exactly in the last match before the play-off for the World Cup, the fittest foreigner broke. Ionuț's injury I'm glad also dynamits the gate, where the selector decided to bet his chances of dreaming of America, as many as we have, with a debutant against the favorite Turkeyprecisely in the hell that awaits the “tricolors” on Thursday at Beşiktaş's stadium!
A crazy contest of events means that in the week before the match against Turkey, the national team will also remain with its back exposed. When we once again had a number 1 to put all our trust in to close the gate of hell in Istanbul, it broke too!
Ionuț Radu had a premonition: In football there are many dynamics that can change. Something can happen against the will”
Ionuț Radu did not appear again in the viral frame in Vigo, because it was no longer the case anyway (Celta suffered an improbable comeback from 0-3 against Alaves), and he will be absent from the starters' picture on Thursday in the most important match of Romanian football in recent years. The number 13 on the back of the blue shirt overturned the plans of the selector, who pressed the panic button and decided to make such a risky bet.
Ionuț Radu helped off the field. Photo: as.com
Unfortunately for the former goalkeeper of the U21 national team, Radu did exactly what he said in the interview we published two months ago: “In football there are a lot of dynamics that can change and it doesn't depend on the player himself. Something can happen against his will.”
That's exactly how it was. Ionuț or Andrei, as the Spaniards call him, defended like crazy, on automatic fire, helping Celta reach the “quarters” of the Europa League and fight for a place in the Champions League next season. He insisted on staying on the pitch even though he felt something was wrong with him, refusing to believe he would miss the crucial match in his country's attempt to return to a World Cup after 28 years.
Radu broke not even 48 hours after Lucescu had lost Mihai Popa (injured in CFR Cluj – Rapid), summoned only a day earlier. The selector had urgently called on Cătălin Căbuz, whose blunder made the world famous, with the embarrassing own goal against FC Argeș. We are talking about a 29-year-old goalkeeper with ZERO appearances in the national team, called next to Marian Aioani, three years younger and still without international experience!
The decision is really shocking! How to approach an all-or-nothing match, and in a hyper-hostile atmosphere, with a rookie?
The coals were lit (cabuz, according to DEX) hotter under the heels of Mircea Lucescu, after the injury to the twin muscles suffered by the goalkeeper from Celta, and that's how the emergency solution Laurentiu Popescu appeared. The reserve promoted out of necessity at the University of Craiova, due to the re-injury of the Ukrainian Pavlo Isenko, dropped his phone from his hand when he received the message on vacation. The decision surprised, if not really shocking! How to approach an all-or-nothing match, and in a hyper-hostile atmosphere, with a rookie?
Recently, we had three goalkeepers chosen as the footballer of the year in Gazeta Sporturilor surveys: Ciprian Tătărușanu, Florin Niță and even Ionuț Radu. But now we have come to put our hope in a goalkeeper who did not impress at all at Rapid. With two matches as a reserve in the national team in the last two years and with an international experience acquired with Sheriff, Urartu, Flora and Helsinki
Ștefan Târnovanu, in the match of the last stage of the single Europa League group, FCSB – Fenerbahce 1-1 / Photo: GSP
The selection area will be limited, but why not call Târnovanu when the shirt is on fire? OK, you have excluded from the calculations Horațiu Moldovan, who has been playing for five months at Oviedo, Răzvan Sava, a spectator for three months at Udinese, and Florin Niță, unemployed since last July, but now you cannot ignore one of FCSB's best players in European duels!
Târnovanu defended with Fenerbahce, which has 5 players in the squad!
Caressed by Gigi Becali's ridiculous antics, Ștefan has only two months since he did not defend, but he offered the advantage of having made serious contact with strong international games, including in the last Europa League group, with Feyenoord and, above all, Fenerbahce, which gives five players to Vincenzo Montella's team. Târnovanu also has four selections, given that he is younger than the chosen ones of the selector.
Even if the champion team is going through a prolonged wandering in the Superliga play-out, Daniel Bîrligea and David Miculescu still got the team. Due to the serious shortage and offensive solutions, with the problems of Louis Munteanu, Denis Drăguș, George Pușcaș etc., which they took the selection to the anonymous teenager Ioan Vermeșan, with eight minutes played in Serie A at Verona!
The explanation that Târnovanu lost his starting place in favor of another Popa, Matei, and has no standing matches did not stand up in other cases, Ianis Hagi being the most eloquent example that came to mind. The impression is that the selector, bothered by other problems much more important than the World Cup tie against a Turkey with five of the players he worked with in his mandate of one and a half years, he is overwhelmed by the mission and forsaken and inspired in the choices, beyond the bad luck that is often in his wake.
Aioani against Kenan Yildiz, Arda Guler and Hakan Calhanoglu, to name just the Turkish stars from Juventus, Real Madrid and Inter, sounds horrifying at the prospect of (at least) 90 very long minutes on Thursday in Istanbul in a stadium with over 40,000 fans breaking world noise records!
