“Leave him, me, two more years at the national team!”

Ashley Davis6 days ago

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Article by Alexandru Barbu – Published on Monday, 01 June 2026, 12:14 / Updated on Monday, 01 June 2026 12:17

Guest on the GSP podcast “2 to 1”Ioan Andone, 66 years old, spoke about the tenure of Gheorghe Hagi (61) in the national team. And he invoked a midfielder who, in his opinion, should not be missing from Romania's team.

Andone, 55 caps and two goals for the “tricolors”, participated in Euro 1984 and the World Cup in 1990. He is aware that “we have to qualify for the Europeans, somehow! Only the results matter, we can't wait”.

“We have to be optimistic”, continues “Fălcosul”, also convinced that Hagi is bound to pull off a successful campaign.

Ioan Andone “forces” Gică Hagi to invent the qualification for Euro 2028: “With nea Mircea, with nea Imi it was the same”

“It will be very difficult for Gică. What chance do we have in the League of Nations, with Sweden, with Poland? Gică must invent something. But the Romanian coaches seem to invent the qualifications. With nea Mircea, in '84, did we have any chance against Italy, the world champion?! Against Sweden, which we had never beaten?! After that, in '90, with Imi. Well, Denmark, with the Laudrup brothers, with Povlsen…” Andone added.

Furthermore, he names an asset of the selector Gică Hagi, but also a disadvantage: “Now, Gică has experience. It's not like in his first mandate at the national team. I think he will manage. They are still players from the generations he raised and that is an advantage.The problem is that you don't have much time to work“.

I would have expected us to qualify again, I mean the previous campaign. To repeat the performance, we thus had a longer period with qualifications. Anyway, Edi was very smart and handled this generation. He took it to the Europeans, won one and lost the other matches, but it was fine. What an emulation there was at Euro 2024, I was at all the matches. I had never seen anything like this before!

– John Andoneon the GSP podcast “2 to 1”

“Leave Stanciu two more years at the national team!”

At 33 years old, Nicolae Stanciu is still seen by Ioan Andone as one of the important players of the national team: “Stanciu has entered extraordinary with Turkey. It is in vain that they say about Nicu… he is 33 years old, but give him two more years at the national team! That you use him when you need, that he's not one of those guys to come and ruin the atmosphere. On the contrary, it has character“.

Nicolae Stanciu in Romania's jersey, photo: Cristi Preda (GSP.ro)

Now a midfielder in China, at Dalian Yingbo, Stanciu collected 86 selections and 15 goals for the Romanian national teamwith whom he played in two final tournaments, Euro 2016 and Euro 2024.
He is summoned by Hagi for this month's “double”, the friendlies with Georgia (June 2) and Wales (June 6). Left out of the team in the first duelStanciu will perform in the second match, from Bucharest.

Recovery is very important now, there are signs, medication. The preparation is different, because now you no longer run 8 kilometers, laps, which was the case with us in the old days. It was miserable on Tuesday in training, the Cooper test, 3×1600 in 6 minutes.

Now you're doing that good summer prep and it's over. And after you start, weekly, you only talk to the player, show him, develop him. And recovery. Look, Modric – he can't be playing in that hall at 40 years old!

– John Andoneon the GSP podcast “2 to 1”