Article by Andrei Crăiţoiu, Sergiu Alexandru – Published Saturday, February 28, 2026, 11:50 / Updated Saturday, February 28, 2026 11:51
With 27 days left until the duel with Turkey, the selector Mircea Lucescu has already outlined his starting formula. Only an injury could cause the first “11” to change.
Although he went through two complicated months, with health problems, Mircea Lucescu was constantly attentive to the players he can summon at the end of March, for the matches that would take the national team to the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. And he constantly talked with them, but also with his staff, present at the matches in the Romanian championship.
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Turkey – Romania, in the semi-final of the pool for WC 2026, will be played on March 26. The winner will play the winner of the away match between Kosovo and Slovakia on March 31 in the grand final.
What will the starting team look like for Turkey – Romania
And Mircea Lucescu, who is decided to sit on the bench for the duel in Istanbul, has already outlined his starting team. Only if one of the starters gets injured will there be changes in the first “11”.
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What Romania will look like with Turkey: I. Radu – Rațiu, Burcă, Drăgușin, Bancu – V. Dragomir, R. Marin – Man, I. Hagi, Mihăilă – Bîrligea
The reason behind Mircea Lucescu's decisions
Ionut Radu he regained his starting place in the national goal. The former U21 captain is having an excellent season at Celta Vigo, starting in both La Liga and the European Cups. And Mircea Lucescu will bet on him, as he did in the last matches.
The duel with Turkey will represent the restoration of the couple Burca – Drăgușin which the national team has relied on in recent years, but which “fell apart” after the Spurs defender's injury. Burcă will start the matches in the Chinese championship in March, while Radu recovered and started to get minutes at Tottenham.
Nicusor Bancu (33 years old) is the favorite to win the duel for the most contested position in the national team. Lucescu and the staff of the national team prefer the left defender of Craiova University over Alex Chipciu (U Cluj), but also Raul Opruț, Dinamo's defender.
In the middle, Lucescu plans to start with Vlad Dragomir and Răzvan Marin. The two have good performances at the club teams, Pafos and AEK Athens respectively, and their performance makes them in pole-position to be starters.
The central striker will be Daniel Birligea. The FCSB winger has shown that he is in form in the Super League and is also benefiting from the fact that he has no competition. Drăguș is suspended, and Louis Muteanu cannot issue claims for tenure. Behind Bîrligea, they will stand Dennis Manthe winger who feels great at PSV, Ianis Hagi and Valentin Mihăilăthe latter having commendable performances in Turkey.
All that matters is the team's preparation for the play-off matches. I kept in touch with my assistants and the players all the time, during this whole period we worked at the highest level. We have a team of valuable footballers and I am sure they will prepare very well for these games.
They are talented and have the desire to make Romanians happy. I believe in the ambition and strength of the group and its ability to overcome this moment. I am sure that together we can get the qualification.
We now need a good atmosphere that will give us the opportunity to quietly prepare for these very important games for all Romanian football.
– Mircea Lucescu, on February 21, via frf.ro
