Article by Marius Mărgărit – Published on Thursday, 26 March 2026 21:49 / Updated on Thursday, 26 March 2026 21:49
Victor Pițurcă (69 years old), the former selector who took Romania to Euro 2000 (he did not lead it to the final tournament) and 2008, watched the match in Istanbul, lost 0-1and says that “I'm disappointed with the result, but not with the players, who gave everything they could at the moment”.
With the road to the World Cup again banned, Romania will play a friendly match against the loser of the Slovakia-Kosovo game on Tuesday.
Victor Pițurcă, after Turkey – Romania
The technician is of the opinion that “unfortunately, we played too little, we didn't have the ball, we didn't manage to build. We tried too much to block them and we didn't have the energy to play anymore. They didn't have great opportunities either.
I said before the game that Turkey is not really a team to be feared, I was only impressed by the commitment, the determination. But we, in order to qualify, had to score at least once.
We had our moments, a bar from Stanciu, which could change the fate of the game, but overall it was too little. How to score if you don't attack, if you don't pass more?!
Rațiu is to blame for their goal. The ball came from afar, he had to collect and Man took over their left wing. We were too afraid of Turkey. There was no hell either from the stands or from the field, but we didn't do what we should have done and what we could have done”.
“Nobody was getting free, there was no way we could get out of the defensive!”
Pițurcă also said that “we had big problems in the construction. They were pressing, we had the ball but we didn't know what to do with it. Well, in such situations, a player on the opposite side of the one who has the ball has to go, look for the free space. But we didn't do that.
And that's why we had no offensive solutions. I'm not going to make nominal remarks now, because it's not normal, but some players think they could have done more if there were some automatics. But I can't tell from the TV what game plan was made!
Maybe the changes also came a little late. At 0-1 you had nothing left to defend. But maybe it was hoped that those on the field could score. Because we gave them trouble when we attacked. Unfortunately, we lose another chance to reach the World Cup, with an opponent who really had nothing to fear”.
