Football Flash

Romania’s national football squad on Saturday and Tuesday take on the national teams of Armenia and Kazakhstan, respectively. The fixtures count towards the 2018 World Cup preliminaries. So far, Group E teams have played one fixture each in September 2016. On home ground, Romania drew level with Montenegro, 1-all, Armenia sustained a 1-nil defeat away from home against Denmark, while on home turf, Kazakhstan held Poland to a 2-all draw.

Florin Orban, 06.10.2016, 13:45

In theory, Romania ranks as favorite as compared to both Armenia and Kazakhstan, although its forthcoming fixtures are scheduled away from home. According to the current national teams world rankings, Romania is ranked 32nd, Armenia is ranked 112th, while Kazakhstan is ranked 83rd. We should mention that Kazakhstan went 13 notches up, as compared to the previous month.

A lot of people pondered over the fact Kazakhstan managed to hold Poland to a 2-all draw. The former team was 2 goals down but it regrouped and even had the chance to win the game. Pundits say that what also mattered for the game was the fact that it was played on artificial turf. Romania’s national team manager, German Christoph Daum has told the media: ”I spoke to the Polish manager Adam Nawalka and he told me that, after the match against Kazakhstan, he was happy his boys came off safe from that pitch, with no injuries. And he is also happy he left Kazakhstan having gained one point.

Similarly, Joachim Loew told me after one of the German national team’ s fixtures that it was important to return with 1 or 3 points. Unfortunately, in our situation, we’re in dire need of all three points. We’ve got to be strong and overcome every difficulty so that we should have no problem gaining all three points. Let us see what that artificial turf looks like, as there are several generations, several models of it. Anyway, everybody told me we should be happy to leave that kind of turf behind.”