Alexandru Barbu, after Turkey – Romania: Hagi, Romania has been waiting for you for 25 years. No pressure
Article by Alexandru Barbu – Published on Thursday, 26 March 2026, 20:59 / Updated on Thursday, 26 March 2026 20:59
10 conclusions immediately after Turkey – Romania 1-0 in the semi-final of the barrage for qualification to the World Championship.
1. “The smaller you are, the farther you fly,” is the opposite of a famous quote. The journey to the World Cup would have been too long for our national team today. And in football, as in history, victories are achieved by the great. The rest are exceptions, Turkey did not let us be the English of Azincourt.
2. I absorbed the pressure from the first half like a rag. Their attackers could not find their place in our dense coasts, Bîrligea and Man defended side by side with Răzvan Marin and Vlad Dragomir. But we were struggling to get out of our own 50. We were helped by the stars from Real Madrid and Juventus, momentarily anesthetized by Romania's dubbing. Shots squared ratio, 0-0.
3. Almost everyone did something in the first half. On the downside, Rațiu, struck several times by Yildiz's dribbles, and an asterisk for Ianis Hagi, hidden among the red shirts.
4. The second part confronted the scenario launched by Daniel Pancu at GSP Live: “Either we score first, or we don't qualify”. Kadioglu scored, forgotten by Man, fatal!, then Hagi wasted a major opportunity. Kenan tested the transversal.
5. We didn't have a plan B, and the bank was thin, but you feel like screaming at the replays of the shot sent by Stanciu into the crossbar… Offf! The CFR coach was right.
6. Beyond the barrage of adjectives surrounding a dazzling appointment, Mircea Lucescu was hired by the Federation to raise the level of the national team, which in most cases a great coach succeeds. We flew into the 3rd place in the League of Nations, the classic preliminaries of the World Cup fell hard for us, only to leave the pool in the semi-finals. Lucescu remains a monument, but the mandate is a missed one.
7. Until we learn how to raise healthy and valuable footballers, the only solution is the continuous import of raw material from Spain, Italy, Germany, children whose parents are still not ashamed of Romania. Drăgușin, Rațiu, Radu, Bîrligea, Vlad Dragomir. Soon Coubiș, Biliboc, Strata, maybe Akdag. Choices that crossed borders early or were born abroad. Even the Turks did not produce Yildiz, Kadioglu, Kokcu, Calhanoglu, they recruited them along the way. Chances are we'll benefit from a generation like theirs.
8. In the mind of the next selector it would be useful to corner a system with 5 in defense. It would help us against superior opponents, like Turkey, anyway Bancu and Rațiu are more midfielders, and a line of 3 defenders in the axis would hide the shortcomings of the central defenders.
9. Gica Hagi, you are in touch. A whole country has been waiting for you for 25 years. No pressure 🙂
10. Strange transmission. The image was jerky, the atmosphere seemed censored, only the commentators could be heard loudly, who were narrating the match as if for a general, commercial audience, with little passion for football.
