Article by Mihai Mironică – Published Friday, April 24, 2026, 3:35 p.m. / Updated Friday, April 24, 2026, 3:35 p.m.
On the same day, our football produced two games with movie endings. Chronologically speaking, the Oradea thriller was first. FC Bihor led 2-0, Sepsi equalized and then, literally in the last phase of the match, Bogdan Vătăjelu scored the goal of the Oradea fiesta. Sepsi's first defeat in the championship since September.
From “Iuliu Bodola”, on the National Arena. Dinamo was one minute away from a final of the Romanian Cup awaited for 14 years, an eternity for a brand with 13 Cups conquered. And all of them are in the custody of the Police, says the Ministry, which in normal countries deals with criminals, not with football. However, Craiova overturned the scenario in Athens with the drama of the Conference League and stole from Dinamo, so that we can stay in terms familiar to the Police, a final which, in the long past, was a banality for this team.
By the way, can the Police still deal with the matters for which it was created, catching and punishing the vandals who “shot” with fire extinguishers in the lawn, and not with football or David Popovici's career?
Two similar victories, two completely different coaches
Two superb victories of Bihor and Craiova obtained by two coaches with diametrically opposite attitudes. I have never seen a coach like Erik Lincar, with permanent and vehement gestures of displeasure at his own players even though his team was leading a much higher ranked opponent. The coach on the sidelines was not a support, but an opponent of his own footballers.
FC Bihor was not leading Sepsi thanks to the coach, but in spite of him. Then the Lincar show took off: elimination for getting involved in a bunch of warriors. It is already the second red of the Bihor coach this year and the second consecutive match in which this team remains in numerical inferiority due to behavioral slips.
FC Bihor shows a club without leadership, without a management to keep such reactions in check, especially since Lincar took the embarrassment to another level when, at the end of the match, he scolded the journalists for “calling” Sepsi's coach, Ovidiu Burcă, at the press conference. Lincar's ridiculous performance also included the claim that Sepsi is a team from Budapest.
What a difference between Oradea's coach and Filipe Coelho's attitude! Even though the University was led until the 119th minute, I did not witness a shantytown drama from Craiova's coach during the match. And at the end, Coelho did something unimaginable for Lincar: he consoled every opponent that Craiova had defeated in a dramatic finale. And between Craiova and Dinamo there has been a fierce rivalry for over half a century, not like the historical void between FC Bihor and Sepsi.
Filipe Coelho before Craiova – Rapid // photo: Cristi Preda (GSP.ro)
FC Bihor is the most offensive team in League 2 among those qualified for the playoffs. Craiova is probably the strongest team in Romania. But football is not only about goals, victories, qualifications, trophies. It is also about attitude, about empathy, about the elegance with which a triumph is lived. It's also about the victory after you win the match.
