Article by Narcis Drejan – Published Tuesday, 05 May 2026, 23:02 / Updated Tuesday, 05 May 2026 23:02
The rapid of recent years seems like a construction built on quicksand, where every wave of excitement is followed by a sudden retreat of the water. Coaches change, sports directors change, speeches change, but the feeling of instability remains. And in the middle of this landscape, Victor Angelescu repeats the idea of collective responsibility, like a refrain that sounds good but doesn't say much.
In the end, in Romanian football we have a clear constant, when everyone is guilty, in fact no one is. Rapid has been through a merry-go-round of coaches in recent years that, on paper, covers almost every possible style and philosophies. From the rigor of Costel Gâlcă to the energy of Marius Șumudică, from the Neil Lennon experiment to the episodes with Adi Mutu, each one came with the promise of a new beginning.
However, none of them had real time to build, it is true that Adi Mutu chose Azerbaijan, but I think that if he insisted, he would have stayed. Every project was an abandoned sketch before it became a plan, although in the furniture business you can't abandon sketches.
And then the simple question that no one in management asks directly: if all the coaches are wrong, isn't the problem somewhere else?
Angelescu and the corporation
Victor Angelescu talks about things “that cannot be seen”, about the work behind the scenes, about the processes. He may be right, but this isn't Football Manager. I also took over Notts County from the National League and for 10 seasons dominated world football, but that doesn't make me a decision maker in real football.
It's like the one with the TV, that if I look at it, it doesn't mean that I know how to fix it. Modern football is no longer all about transfers and immediate results, but there is a time when the invisible becomes suspect.
When the results are constantly missing and the direction seems to be changed on the fly, the construction speech starts to sound like a justification, that you know, that I didn't think it would be like this, but it will be beyond! And there's another problem, Angelescu has to let go of the corporate idea, it doesn't work in Romanian football, not yet!
The image from Romanian mythology
And this is where the Caloian intervenes, if you still wrote about him in the title. In popular lore, the Caloian was a ritual done to bring rain. A symbolic figure was buried, mourned, invoked, all in a script repeated with hope, and the community did everything they knew, respected the steps, believed in the result, but the rain did not come every time.
Rapid works today in a similar mechanism. A sports director changes, Mauro Pederzoli leaves, Marius Bilașco comes, there is discussion about who is coming and who is not coming, names like Bogdan Mara are circulated, tracks are opened with Daniel Pancu, but nothing seems to be part of a coherent thread.
Rather, each move feels like a new ritual. A failure is buried, a few weak stages are mourned, a new beginning is invoked.
And Angelescu plays the role of the one who leads the ritual, he is the Caloian or the butterfly that does not bring the rain. He is not absent, he is not silent, he does not run away from the press, on the contrary, he speaks, explains, tempers. But he never takes it head on. “We're all to blame” becomes a convenient, almost bureaucratic formula that dilutes responsibility until it disappears.
In contrast, the examples from Romanian football are clear. At FCSB, Mihai Stoica was often the public shield of the team, the man who took the pressure and turned it into conflict. At Rapid, the pressure remains in the air, there is no steady voice to absorb it or direction to channel it.
And then she inevitably falls on the team, look what happened to Dobre, Aioani, even Săpunaru.
Ironies upon ironies
Daniel Pancu's situation adds another layer of irony. A legend of the club, a man who was there at the beginning of the project, a coach on the rise, wanted but never fully assumed. It is invoked as a future solution, but not as a present decision, as if the Rapid is always waiting for the perfect moment, not realizing that football does not offer such moments, only decisions made or missed.
Meanwhile, the goal remains the same, qualifying for the European cups, with complicated scenarios and end-of-season calculations. But even if Rapid were to get there, the underlying question doesn't go away. Would that validate the direction or temporarily cover its lack?
Rapid's problem is one of identity, that is, they are still working on what kind of team they want to be, what kind of club they want to build and, above all, who takes this path when things don't go well.
Caloian does not bring rain just because the ritual is repeated correctly, sometimes, not only the ritual but also the blind faith in it must be changed. Can you hear me, Mr. Football Manager player?
