Florin Maxim, the 45-year-old coach of newly promoted Corvinul Hunedoara, offered insights into his team’s performance following their 0-3 defeat against U Cluj in the 13th round of the Superliga. This loss marks another setback for the team, with U Cluj’s Jovo Lukic scoring a hat-trick to secure the win.
Maxim pointed out the naivety displayed by his players and acknowledged the quality gap between his team and their opponents, including their previous opponent, Rapid, who triumphed 2-0 in the prior match.
Maxim’s Call for Improvement in League Performance
“If you didn’t see the match, you might say it was humiliating. We need to learn from this. It’s unfortunate that I have to repeat this, but we need to be a bit more grounded in Liga 1. In Liga 2, we played similarly, exposed ourselves, but managed to resolve situations because our opponents helped us with their quality. Today, they punished us; Lukic scored from half a chance. We need to fix that,” Maxim stated.
He highlighted that despite a good first half, the team missed opportunities that could have shifted the game’s momentum. “We could have gotten back into the match. I even discussed with Mister (Cristiano Bergodi) that U Cluj had conceded many goals, but we helped them with our mistakes. Had we scored at 1-1, the game would have looked different. They played defensively, knowing we would open up,” he reflected.
Maxim admitted to possibly rushing his two substitutions at halftime, considering the players’ feelings. He noted that Albu had not played in a long time, and Roger was returning from injury, while also thinking about the upcoming Tuesday match.
“Perhaps I rushed those changes, but we all have lessons to learn. We have an intense cup match coming up,” Maxim concluded during his comments to DigiSport.
Translating Training into Game Performance
Discussing the importance of translating training into matches, he said, “We have quality players. Just like against Rapid, they caught us off guard and scored exactly what we prepared for. We discussed marking Lukic and Mendy closely, but we struggled to follow Lukic’s movements. It’s challenging; they sense our hesitation and have quality players. We need to implement our training strategies into matches; there’s nothing different about that.”
Addressing a collective mistake during the match, he stated, “Codruț’s error? We can’t blame just the last player; the goalkeeper is the last line of defense. It was a collective mistake; Iacob could have easily stopped it. We all erred. When your teammate is battling an attacker, there’s an unwritten rule to stay alert. He needs to learn from these mistakes.”
Maxim acknowledged his intensity as a coach, revealing that he expressed his feelings to the team during halftime and reiterated the need to focus on upcoming matches.
Mario Bratu’s Remarks on the Match
Mario Bratu commented on the team’s performance, stating, “After the 75th minute, we took significant risks; the last two goals resulted from their effective transitions. Overall, we played well and controlled much of the match. However, we were caught off guard during set pieces. We need to improve our efficiency; we create many opportunities but struggle to score.”
Bratu added, “We shouldn’t take encouragement from this; we need points, and we’re aware that we’re a well-prepared team. I hope we can start accumulating points in the upcoming games. We maintained possession well in the first half and had chances to equalize, which could have changed the match’s outcome. That was our limit tonight.”
With 16 points, Corvinul ends the day in 9th place in the Superliga.
