Article by Remus Dinu – Published Monday, May 25, 2026, 2:11 p.m. / Updated Monday, May 25, 2026, 2:12 p.m.
Valentin Cojocaru, the goalkeeper of the Poles from Pogon Szczecin, was not summoned even by Gheorghe Hagi, the coach who revitalized his career in 2018. The 30-year-old goalkeeper had complained, in 2023, about Edi Iordănescu's lack of interestthen it was not a solution for the late Mircea Lucescu either.
- Georgia – Romania is played in Tbilisi, on June 2, from 20:00. The match will be broadcast on TV on Antena 1;
- Romania – Wales will be played on June 6, from 20:45, in Bucharest, at the Steaua stadium. The game will be broadcast on Prima TV;
- Both games of the Romanian national team in June can be watched in liveTEXT format on GSP.ro.
The first action with Gică Hagi on the bench of the “tricolors” is around the corner, and the discussions regarding the “King's” elections have already started to take center stage in the public space. The variants that the new selector opts for they were not the most popular even among microbiologists and did not receive the unanimous approval of specialists.
Dumitru Stângaciu, for example, stated in a reaction offered to Gazeta that he does not understand Hagi's decision not to summon Laurentiu Popescu, who recently won the event with Craiova University:
“It seems strange to me that Popescu was not summoned. When someone wins the Cup and the championship, you have to give him what is his. He must be rewarded. It seems to me a great injustice. I do not understand what it was and why he was not summoned. But Popescu should have been rewarded”, Stângaciu told GSP journalist Sergiu Alexandru.
Valentin Cojocaru, not even now!
Also in terms of goalkeepers, there was another decision by Hagi that causes confusion.
The selector bypassed Valentin Cojocaru, one of the goalkeepers who have constantly evolved in recent years, at Pogon Szczecin, where he has accumulated, starting from 2024, 102 appearances, 35 of which ended with a “clean sheet.”
Valentin Cojocaru was bought by Pogon from Leuven for 400,000 euros in the summer of 2024
This season, Cojocaru was the main option in goal for the Poles, scoring 31 matches for the 9th place holder in “Ekstraklasa”, Poland's first league.
Cojocaru did not even appear on the list of preliminary summons drawn up by Hagi and his staff. On the list was, however, another goalkeeper who plays in Poland, Otto Hindrich, 23 years old, the goalkeeper of Legia Warsaw. Which, in comparison, only caught 13 games in the recently concluded season.
Hindrich was joined on the final list by Ionuț Radu, the #1 option of the national team, and speedster Marian Aioani, who comes after a season considered inconclusive at Rapid.
With no minutes in Romania's big team, the former international youth player Valentin Cojocaru let it be understood, in the fall of 2025, that his phone is dead and that he has not definitively closed the door of a possible selection for the first national team.
“The King” saved him
Cojocaru was not an option for Gică Hagi, although the 61-year-old coach was the one who-he recovered his career in 2018, after years in which the goalkeeper had evolved little or not at all. Although he does not come from the Hagi Academy, “The King” granted him unlimited credit at Viitorul, keeping him constantly between 2018 and 2021, while the Bucharest native was registered at Ovidiu.
During that period, Cojocaru won two trophies together with Dobrogeni, the Cup and the Supercup, both in 2019.
Cojocaru wore the jersey of the U19 and U21 national teams, for which he marked a total of 21 selections between 2014 and 2016.
Many of Hagi's “children” are in the lot
If Valentin Cojocaru was left out of the scheme, 10 other footballers who worked with Hagi at one point got the team: Aioani, Ghiță, Borza, Răzvan Marin, Cicâldău, Tudor Băluță, Ianis Hagi, Louis Munteanu, Florinel Coman and Dennis Drăguș. They may be joined by other names, which will be announced after the Conference League play-offs.
Many of them return after a considerable period in the lotas is the case with Cicâldău, Tudor Băluță and Florinel Coman.
At 30 years old, Valentin Cojocaru has not yet made his debut for the national team
Cojocaru has only one selection for the first national team, recorded in November 2016. He did not get to debut under the tricolor, being a reserve in the friendly with Russia in the fall of that year and left out of the team by Daum for the duel with Poland in the same action (0-3, in the WC 2018 preliminaries).
FCSB, Crotone, Frosinone, Apollon Limassol, Viitorul Constanța, FC Voluntari, Dnipro-1, Feyenoord Rotterdam, OH Leuven and Pogon Szczecin are the teams Cojocaru played for in his CV until he was 30 years old.
He accused the selection and criticized his opponent: “It bothered me that I didn't sign with an impresario from Romania”
Three years ago, Cojocaru accused Iordănescu jr., with subject and predicate, that selections are made based on the interests of businessmen. At the same time, he criticized Horațiu Moldovan, one of his direct opponents from that period:
“I realized that the impresario is an important criterion and the fact that I didn't sign with someone from Romania bothered me. My impresario was an important man in my rise as a footballer. We focused on performance and never focused on the financial side.”
“It is not in my character to talk about other players, but it has gone too far. I can say without any lack of modesty that the goalkeeper of the national team has made more mistakes in the last year than I have made in my entire career”, said Cojocaru, with direct reference to Horațiu Moldovan, one of the key people in the campaign for EURO 2024.
It seems confusing to me that I was selected for the national team when I played for Viitorul, and after playing for two better teams from stronger championships I was not selected again”, the goalkeeper also said in Prosport.
Does Valentin Cojocaru deserve a chance in the national team?
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YES
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NOT
The batch convened by Gheorghe Hagi
- Goalkeepers: Ionuț RADU (Celta Vigo | Spain, 9/0), Marian AIOANI (FC Rapid 1923, 1/0), Otto HINDRICH (Legia Warsaw | Poland, 0/0);
- Defenders: Andrei RAțIU (Rayo Vallecano | Spain, 38/2), Deian SORESCU (Gaziantep FK | Turkey, 23/0), Tony STRATA (Vitória Guimarães | Portugal, 0/0), Radu DRĂGUȘIN (Tottenham | England, 29/1), Virgil GHIȚĂ (Hannover 96 | Germany, 9/1), Adrian Rus (Univ. Craiova) | Poland, 5/0), Andrei COUBIȘ (U Cluj, 1/0), Andrei BURCĂ (Yunnan Yukun | China, 45/1), Matei ILIE (CFR Cluj, 0/0), Lisav EISSAT (Maccabi Haifa | Israel, 2/0), Nicușor BANCU (Universitatea Craiova, 52/2), Andrei BORZA (FC Rapid 1923, 0/0);
- Midfielders: Răzvan MARIN (AEK Athens | Greece, 74/12), Alexandru CICÂLDĂU (Universitatea Craiova, 38/4), Vladimir SCRECIU (Universitatea Craiova, 7/0), Tudor BĂLUĂ (Universitatea Craiova, 12/0), Nicolae STANCIU (Dalian | China, 86/15), Vlad DRAGOMIR (Paphos | Cyprus, 7/0), Ianis HAGI (Alanyaspor | Turkey, 53/8), David MATEI (Craiova University, 0/0);
- Strikers: Dennis MAN (PSV | Netherlands, 45/11), Olimpiu MORUȚAN (FC Rapid 1923, 17/1), Valentin MIHĂILĂ (Caykur Rizespor | Turkey, 35/5), Ștefan BAIARAM (Universitatea Craiova, 4/1), Alexandru DOBRE (FC Rapid 1923, 6/0), Louis MUNTEANU (DC United | USA, 4/2), Florinel COMAN (Al-Gharafa | Qatar, 20/2), Denis DRĂGUȘ (Gaziantep FK | Turkey, 27/7).
