FRF announced where Ion Marin will train, after qualifying the U19 representative in the Euro semifinals
Article by Daniel Grigore – published Tuesday, September 2, 2025, 10:38 / Updated Tuesday, September 2, 2025 10:39
After promoting the representative of Romania in the semifinals of the European Championship U19, Ion Marin will continue as a coach of the U18 representative. Basically, it will work with players of the same age level.
In June, Ion Marin, 70 years old, qualified the U19 representative of Romania in the semifinals of the European Championship at that age level.
FRF had not publicly announced what would happen to Ion Marin. He has now confirmed that the 70 -year -old coach will continue in the junior representative circuit, on the U18 national bank. Basically, he will work with players of the same age as those he had in the first phase under command at U19.
Ion Marin was not promoted to U20: Continue as a coach at U18
After Euro U19, Vlad Munteanu, the operational manager of the Romanian Football Federation, announced at GSP Live That Ion Marin's future would be debated in the next Technical Commission meeting within the FRF, led by Mihai Stoichiță.
The natural step in relation to the federation strategy of recent years would have been for Marin to continue with the same players at U20 representativebut the federals decided differently.
“Basically, Ion Marin does not start from the U19 national, but his generation is” completed “. As for a possible progress at the next threshold, that is, in Romania U20, I think we have to follow what will happen on Thursday, when we have a technical commission meeting,” Vlad Munteanu said on June 24.
The first matches of the U18 representative with Ion Marin on the bench will take place this month, in which an action is scheduled that includes two friendly matches, both with the homologous representative of the Republic of Moldova: on September 5, 5:00, respectively on September 7, at 12:00.
To clarify, we have generations U15, U16, U17, U18 and U19. When one season ends, each generation goes to the next threshold. U15 becomes U16, for example.
However, the teams are different: in the U15, U16 and U17 area we are still talking about juniors, while at U18 and U19 there are players who evolve into senior teams. Then, the profiling of the coach is made according to these footballers. Practical, Rotations are made between U15, U16 and U17, and separately between U18 and U19.
An example: last summer, the national U18 was taken over by Adrian Dulcea. The same generation, this year, is transformed into U19, which will have qualifications for the European Championship in November 2026. Thus, Adi Dulcea would have a year and a half to build a plan for that U19 campaign.
– Vlad Munteanu, at GSP Live
